Blue
by Taranova
Summary: When Roy and Edward return from Ishbal battle-worn, they are drawn inexorably down a path of darkness, deceit, lust, and illusion. Angels don't show mercy, and neither do their victims. Warnings, pairings inside. Complete.
1. Death

**BLANKET WARNINGS: Male/Male, rape, abuse, incestuous implications, major character deaths, abundant minor character deaths, torture, murder, gore, language, religious themes, disturbing imagery, etc. I should also make note that this fic is in a modern setting. The plot follows the first anime, and takes place after the lab 5 arc, with major differences. For example, Ed went to Ishbal with Roy, and the time period is late 1990's Amestris with a few anachronisms here and there.  
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**PAIRINGS: People tend to be interested in these. I've listed them in order of prevalence. Non-consensual Roy/Ed, non-consensual Archer/Ed, parental Havoc/Ed, light Havoc/Riza, one-sided ****Riza****/****Ro****y****, non-consensual OC/Multiple. So yes, there's lots of rape in this. Be warned.  
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Beautiful loneliness sank into the darkness of the small and dilapidated bar on Charleston Street. It was practically empty, but for an older man working late, and a military officer with little other business to attend to. Roy Mustang was perfectly aware that he wasn't in his right mind, and hadn't been for quite some time; therefore, he didn't rush through his drink, and ignored the time ticking away.

Blood, fresh as the day it had been split by the blade of a scalpel, seemed to linger in his brain, his senses, his every dead nerve. He tried to choke off the screaming memories, tried to ignore the phantom pain of a gun or a knife (former appendages), tried to remove himself from the image he had procured of himself: a demon in the darkness. Blindly obeying orders, damned and beautiful for being damned.

The liquid in his mug had gone lukewarm; it felt like blood inside the glass. Thick, dark, bitter. He had never enjoyed the taste of alcohol, because it burned like firewater. But like all things detrimental to his health and psychological well-being, he had learned to ignore it, and succumb to the intoxication. So long as no one knew.

The bartender was just a name tag, shiny and plastic over faded stained coveralls. Ted cleared his throat, and leaned over the bar cautiously, as if Roy's uniform had intimidated him into meek reminder. "When are you going to start paying when you come in? You can't keep abusing the tab system."

Roy didn't respond, but very awkwardly slid his hand into his coat pocket, pulling out air. He shrugged and then took a sip of the beer, hiding a grimace. It was very strong—the Amestrian breweries were famous for the taste of their liquor. "Sorry," he murmured, dabbling in an attempt at polite conversation before returning to his drink in silence.

He buried his head in his folded arms, groaning as a migraine flowered somewhere behind the temple. It wasn't the first time he had come in sober and been left too drunk to stand properly, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Of course, after Hughes' death, these little forays into inebriation had become more and more frequent. He couldn't hide from himself anymore, and he wouldn't try.

A bitter laugh escaped his lips. The images consumed him like the flames had licked at the paint on Maes' car. The engine rumbling and moaning and finally exploding in a mushroom cloud of exhaust. His own frantic, gloved fingers pushing back the charred and wrecked metal frame to find the smoking body. It had been black as charcoal and hot as hell.

No one could have guessed that was how Maes would fall, not a car accident of all things. He had tried the grief meetings; tried telling everyone in the room his sob story, a circle of tear stained faces peering back at him with a resolute sadness he found more depressing than therapeutic. Gracia had tried them too, before she and her daughter had moved up north somewhere. Roy could honestly (well, not honestly) say he didn't give a damn about whether he'd hear from them again.

"Maybe you should just head home," Ted said.

Roy looked up at him with tired, intoxicated eyes. He allowed the words spoken to him to sink in, and he made sure he fully understood them before saying, "No one wants me there. Not anymore. It's full of empty memories that don't mean much. Pointless to return."

And he couldn't remember whose graves belonged to him.

"I'd like to die," Roy revealed with a soft smirk, eyes still closed, "I want to see what it's like. I've always heard that hell is unbearable. Maybe there are truths to those rumors, but as far as I know, the earth is its own kind of hell. It keeps turning and turning and one day we're all going to sink down beneath the soil, toward that fire. Why bother." It wasn't a question.

"Don't talk like that." The bartender swiftly piled abandoned and half-empty glasses from the counter top into a bin, shaking his head as he did so. "I always tell myself, 'No matter how bad it gets, there's a silver lining.' Find that silver lining." He offered a kind, toothy grin, more grandfather than drink-handler.

Roy nodded, not able to take him seriously after that particular piece of advice. He hated optimists. Movements slow, he laid a hand on the counter top and eased himself out of his chair. With more effort than was usually necessary to be coherent, he said, "I'll keep looking."

Grudgingly, he staggered away from his empty mug. The bar was vacant at its closing hour, and every step echoed in the barren room. When he reached the door with its cracked white paint job, he turned back to the bartender. "I'll be back. Put it on my tab." He swallowed, trailing off into silence.

He opened the door, a bell ringing above, and went out into the night. Cold snow swirled about him, but he didn't draw his jacket closer. He could stand the cold, when he wanted. It was the heat he couldn't bear.

* * *

He stood in front of a shabby apartment door, resting his eyes on the knob with a concentrated interest. Part of him had forgotten his original intentions for coming to this part of Central with its factories and its cheap housing and its noisy freight trains that rumbled through the valley. And part of him was screaming the obvious, though he refused to consciously hear it.

His hands shook of their own will. He had no need to be frightened. He knew that much. If anyone saw, if anyone had any indication of his intentions, it wouldn't mean anything. He was immune to that kind of trouble. Hesitantly, he came to his conclusion, and rapped on the door once. Barely breathing, he knocked again.

There were footsteps, and he winced backward as the door opened and light flooded his groggy vision. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, and when they did, he noticed with disappointment and pleasure that the one who had answered was exactly the person he had been hoping to see.

"Fullmetal, would you mind letting me in?" It was a pitiful attempt at sounding official, mostly because only half of it had been comprehensible, even to his ears. He found that despite his slouched, downtrodden posture and the feeling of marbles in his mouth, he didn't care what the kid thought of him. Ed was used to it. Always ready to be leaned on. Always ready to comfort him. "I don't think you need to be up so late though. Past your bedtime, right, short stuff?"

"You wake me up once a week with this shit. I don't think it's any of your business if I have a bedtime or not," Ed replied coolly, leaning against the door frame. His warm amber eyes danced with minute curiosity, and less evidently, suspicion. His very presence was guarded. "What do you need?"

Need. Edward was more than used to this, practically been expecting the intrusion. Ed hadn't asked what the Colonel wanted. No, he'd asked what he _needed_. Maybe that was Fullmetal's function now. Providing some kind of twisted life support for a man who could barely walk straight.

Roy staggered back a bit, shoulder against the wall for support. He noticed the blond move uneasily, seeming ready to catch him if he happened to fall. Something about that concern in his body language was strangely comforting to the dark-haired man. And body language itself. Seeing him breathe. Knowing that he alone was responsible for the sinfully precious life that surveyed him.

"I'm lonely." He took a step forward, but Edward blocked his path with his much smaller body. It was a comical way of preventing access to the warmth of the apartment building. "Come on, it's not like I'm some stranger from the street. It's me. Don't make me sleep out here tonight."

"I think you should leave," Ed said, a touch of concern in his voice. It was overshadowed by the barely noticeable shiver that started in the small of his back and curved up his spine. The cool night air brushed his hair over his forehead. Roy caught a scent on the breeze; he mirrored Ed's shiver, involuntarily, and tried not to touch the kid. "You smell like shit."

Roy stopped, a thin smile forming on his lips. He wasn't aware of how awkward it looked with his already dazed expression, ignorant of anything but Ed's unfeeling eyes ringed with gold. Edward was like the sun to his moon—pitiful analogy, but here it seemed the imagery was appropriate; a beautiful blond standing in a halo of doorway light. "I don't smell anything," he stumbled, and then made to move over the threshold again.

He failed miserably, falling to his knees as a cloud of inebriation took him over. His breath was forced out of his lungs in a heavy rush, painful and awakening him to his advances. He had hit the pavement hard, and he thought he felt a bit of wet blood on his stinging knees.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

Edward stared at him, feeling conscientious for the both of them. He flinched as an initial response to the thud of the drunken man on his porch, because it had to hurt, but all of that concern dully faded away as he remembered just who it was. Roy was watching him ever still, those dark, smoldering eyes (the color of charred flesh flaking away) resting on his body in a way that made him shudder.

He sighed, looking warily around the complex for any nosy neighbors, and then opened the door a bit wider in case the bastard wanted to stumble onto his cough. No matter how much he pretended not to, there was a part of him that did care for the man deep down. Way deep down. Maybe not in the way Mustang wanted him to, but that was another can of worms and he wasn't going to think about it.

Roy crawled into the living room on hands and skinned knees, looking like a crippled dog. Hell, it was a proper description. Edward shut the door behind him, and Roy watched the teen walk past, long gold hair loosely flowing over his back. Roy saw him, all of him, feeling that painful, aching feeling swell up in his chest again; familiar and alien. He wanted to comment—something, anything—perhaps make mention of the fact that the kid was dressed down to his underwear in thirty degree weather. No. Forget him.

He heard Edward in the kitchen, running water, messing with dishes in the sink. He closed his eyes, thinking about the tragic circumstances that surrounded them. All of Edward's determination had once been put to use on the battlefield, and was now concentrated in the form of housekeeping. Edward had changed; had been forced to change.

His home was a perfect example of his new-found maturity. It was small, cramped, and equipped for two people at most. Very sparsely furnished, only the necessities spared. Once the boys had regained their flesh, they didn't much feel like staying indoors; Al wanted to touch everyone and everything, and Ed wanted to watch, a rare smile blissfully bestowed on those pouting lips.

The only downside to the cleanliness was the cleanliness itself. Al had been weak after the transmutation. Edward had treated him like a frail infant, spraying the doorknobs with Lysol and packing every medicine known to man in the hallway closet.

Roy knew that Ed dipped into those medicines himself, though not to cure a cold or a sour stomach. He did it to let the pain fade away as he drifted into deep, dreamless sleep. Sometimes, and it was a very rare definition of sometimes, Roy liked to watch him sleep; it made him feel like a creep, and God knew he was one, but behind the pretty innocence of that face were nightmares and memories of fire and melting flesh and blood. He couldn't blame the kid for wanting to nullify the memories.

"Letting me in?" Roy asked with a smirk, cringing as he tried, and failed, to get up off the goddamn floor.

"Oh, God. Don't broadcast that I'm giving a shit about you," Edward called from the other room, clearly annoyed. "I didn't feel like pushing you out. Don't feel like waking up to your frozen fucking corpse tomorrow morning."

"So _fucking_ rude..." Roy groaned, uneasily climbing to his feet. He joined Ed in the kitchen, dark eyes trailing over the stainless stove, the cabinet, the refrigerator, Edward. The kid was used to seeing him late at night and never asked any questions. As always, Ed assumed that the man was lonely and had no where else to go. And as usual, he was correct.

Ed threw him a sideways glance, scrubbing heavily at a greased pan. Something about Mustang's presence always put him out; dangerous static collected in the atmosphere, threatening him without his knowing why. He paused and put a stray lock of hair behind his ear, ignoring the other occupant of the room. Roy was like an ugly piece of furniture in the corner of his life. He desperately wanted to burn it, but there were other people that kept it around for nostalgia's sake-because the man used to be different.

Roy nonchalantly opened the refrigerator. It was about as well-stocked as his own, devoid of anything but a half-empty box of grape soda. Edward liked caffeine (it helped the headaches), so he didn't question it. Nevertheless, Ed was careless with himself nowadays. Never ate, hardly ever slept. He wasn't actively participating in military functions anymore, so was quickly losing weight. Anyone could vouch for Fullmetal, though; he was still strong, emotionally and physically.

"Hope you don't mind," Roy muttered, opening a can of soda. He did not take a drink. He merely stared at it, as though it were about to answer the questions racing through his own head.

Ed nodded, though he wasn't at all in the mood to entertain or humor Mustang. If the man insisted on showing up at his apartment at three in the morning every other week, taking his food and couch without any hint of gratitude whatsoever, then the least he could do was shut his mouth.

The Colonel tended to say ridiculous things, especially when he was drunk. Things that could be harmless, things that were meant to be funny but came out muddled. Things that he wanted to forget, either because they turned his skin red with embarrassment or made his old nightmares reawaken, foul creatures in the dark. His whole body stiffened up, and suddenly the man's presence was all too real, and he wanted him out.

"Fullmetal, you're one of the nicest people I've ever met," Roy said gracelessly, a wilted reminiscence lingering beneath his words. His eyes were wet, and he kept staring at the silver soda tab, the sweet scent of artificial grape and carbonated water tickling his nostrils. "The only one who'd ever tolerate someone like me."_ Like me. A fucking creep like me. _Roy took a large swig of the soda, and then set it down on the kitchen table with a clang. The sound echoed briefly, a loud piece of reality that disparaged illusion. "But we understand each other, don't we, Ed?"

Ed turned the tap water off, and stood very still with his back to him, long bangs falling like a golden curtain across his face. Edward had grown up in such a short time; when had the child become _this_? "Do you remember? All of those lonely nights out there. In the dark. Nothing but the smell of burning. Yeah, you understand, don't you?" He smirked. "You hate me for what I do."

Ed dried his hands on a small dish towel, and then threw it haphazardly on the counter. He cringed as a wave of nausea swept across the wasteland that had become his mind, his strength, his virtue. He suddenly felt too tired for his physical age. All of the years of running and hiding and killing were catching up to him, in this one moment, and Mustang was going to break him by doing nothing at all.

"I'm only babysitting," Ed said, fingers snapping to the counter top for support. He shivered, hot sickness spreading from his brain to his stomach. Tylenol was a poor substitute for sleep, but his exhaustion was just an excuse to keep a grasp on sanity; the kitchen window was black, and it was like a dark mirror. He could see himself, like a small, frightened animal, and Roy in the background, eyes the same shade as the sky.

Roy set the soda on the counter. He approached the boy from behind, taking in the kid's ass (he forced his gaze away, reminding himself that he was only just a _little _cold, not quite that desperate), and then touched his hair, pulling a clump free and holding it to his nose. He nuzzled into the back of Edward's neck, and could feel his pulse, a small sensation against soft warm hair. He touched his back, slowly, and the thin cotton material that separated flesh; barely detectable, and more like a pervasive breeze.

Roy's breath was hot like smoke. "I'm just real cold right now, that's all. Body heat's transferable." So were other things, but he wouldn't mention them. "What are you thinking about?"

"I want to go to bed," Ed whispered brokenly, something catching in his throat. He opened his eyes so that slivers of gold peered down, swimming with sickness, at the smooth metallic surface of the empty sink. He tried not to think of Mustang's hands on him; those little touches could be ignored. "I've got that damn murder case, Mustang, you know I can't...watch over you all night, I can't..."

Roy allowed the faintest of smirks, and then moved slightly closer, his hands dropping to the teen's waist; he could feel his bones, hard and smooth beneath young flesh. Edward was so innocent, trapped by things he didn't understand. One little touch and the kid went silent, as if he knew all of the little fears and desires his Colonel harbored, but didn't want to acknowledge them. Roy was on the edge of right, and slowly slipping down the slopes of wrong, but he didn't care. "You worried 'bout me, Fullmetal?"

"I'm _so _fucking tired, Mustang." Edward looked down and to the side, giving him a look that spoke with its eyes. A sick shudder coursed through him, like nausea had become an electric current; the feeling never left. The grip on his waist went lower, lower, until he could feel those damn hands caressing his hips (_that's not how you warm up, asshole-_).

Roy reluctantly let him go, sensing discomfort but against the idea of obeying his conscience. It wasn't like he _cared. _Touching the kid wasn't a crime; no one could look at Fullmetal and not want to. The kid was fucking beautiful, like it or not, and hell—he was military, and probably been screwed so many times it was a wonder he could still walk. But he'd stopped, like always, just enough to slip a hint, a suggestion—something to let Ed know the opportunity was there and waiting. There was never any response, not a real one.

Roy felt like he was drowning, and Ed had the life preserver but refused to throw it down. For Ed, drowning Roy was a solution; a locked door and a bottle of whatever he could find, but more often than not, it didn't negate the _wrong _feeling that overwhelmed him. He needed to call someone, but there was no one to call; these were boundaries no one was aware of, and he wasn't going to reveal them.

No one had ever tried to protect him anyway—not from Tucker, who had killed his innocence; not from those fucking serial killers, who'd almost killed him; not from himself, who'd killed to stay alive. What would change that now? What was a little more hurt, especially the kind no one could see?

Roy grabbed his wrist, fingers wrapping tight enough to leave marks on soft skin, and then twisted the boy's body so they were facing each other. "I need you, Fullmetal," he said, commanding authority. A textbook fact. "You don't have to be scared of me. You know I wouldn't hurt you." Sweat started to form on the man's brow, his gut clenching in what could only be described as a strange pleasure. It was a wonderful, awful sensation, like being high.

Ed gritted his teeth. "You don't _need _me." The man reeked of alcohol and despair, which of course was never a good combination. Life without Hughes wasn't treating the colonel well; he could empathize with the grief, but not the twisted emotions accompanying. He needed air, space to breathe. Roy wasn't the only one who'd lost someone. "I don't _hate_ you, I just hate the way you're always here, always..." He trailed off, and looked away.

"What?" Roy demanded, eyebrows furrowing together. He took hold of Edward's small shoulders, fingers digging deep, and shook him hard. Pretty eyes bore into his, questioning and afraid. The teen's whole body stiffened up in reaction to the violent behavior, but he didn't protest, turning his head away so that he wouldn't have to breathe in the rancid stench of alcohol. "Answer me, you fucking brat." Roy shook him again.

Ed looked at him, glaring because he didn't know what else to do. Common sense dictated he hit the man for daring to look at him, but this wasn't a common criminal; this was Mustang, for God's sake, and even when sober the man was dangerous. Drunk, he was downright lethal. Even so, he muttered, "What do you think Hawkeye would say if she saw you touch me?"

Roy's face contorted in agitation; this wasn't a tangent he had been expecting. But as far as he was concerned, in this moment, Hawkeye didn't exist. "You have any idea who you're talking to? Do you?"

Edward struggled to garner courage, and then yelled, "You son of a bitch, get your hands off of me or I'll fuck up your goddamn face."

"I'm not going to let go of you, not now, not ever. How bout you fucking listen to me for once in your pathetic life?" Roy backhanded him hard. Oh, God. Too much. Too close, and suddenly all of those years and all of those temptations came together in solidarity, and he had many options but he wanted - needed - to take the road less traveled.

_Love me, love me, love me-_

"Pathetic?" Ed challenged, wincing as the weight against his body doubled. It hurt—a bruising, aching kind of pain. He could hear muffled, slightly erratic breathing. Like a death rattle or the panting chorus of lust. So he closed his eyes and resorted to what he normally did—yelling. "I hate you, I hate the way you look at me, I hate the way you treat me when no one's around—I fucking _hate _you."

Ed winced back into the wall as Roy's head shot up. He found himself unable to tear away from the man's penetrating stare, and realized that the darkness was too deep, too emotionless. Anger and desire and fear. A warm, vulnerable trembling started up in the pit of his stomach, soon rendering him unable to move.

A grim smile passed before Roy's lips, and he put them to Ed's ear. "How old are you, now?" he whispered, calming himself down with some new sweet scent. The teen's hair had the distinct aura of having been recently washed; Roy pressed his cheek against the silk locks, loving the warmth, loving the heated feeling enveloping his heart. Something like a groan escaped his lips, and he felt an aching need to press himself against the kid.

"Why the hell would you even _ask_ that?" Ed asked, heart pounding. He swallowed hard, knowing the implications. "I...You can't-"

Roy felt like his head was splitting in two. One part of his brain was screaming; telling him to stop, shut down, break away, before it was too late. This was wrong. Edward was someone sacred, to him and to his team and to the world. Young, good-natured, innocent on the surface. Untouchable. And yet here he was, violating every moral code he could think of, violating a goddamn kid just because he fucking _could. _

"God, you're fucking beautiful..."

Ed waited with trepidation as Roy leaned forward, and he turned his head sharply. He felt childish and naive, because although Mustang's intentions were all too clear, he wasn't sure what they would entail; he could only press himself further back into the wall, feeling more exposed and vulnerable than he had in a long while. "No..." He felt hot lips against his throat, followed by the wet, light lap of tongue and teeth.

Something sunk. It felt like a heavy stone had gone straight through his chest, and suddenly his body couldn't hold itself upright. The overpowering stench of alcohol and the sensation of the wet muscle on his neck made him go weak with helplessness. It didn't even occur to him to fight back; not yet, not when the situation didn't feel real enough to be solid. "No...no, you can't...I'm..."

Roy silenced him with a brooding flash of his eyes. They were empty. Edward was trembling underneath his touch, the boy's body sinking slowly down the wall, his knees giving out beneath him. Roy brushed stray hair out of Ed's face, and let his hand remain there as he listened to heavy, fearful pants fall from Ed's lips. The hot clutch of need caught him between his legs, and he pressed himself against the boy, smirking as Ed acknowledged his Colonel's erection with a terrified look of panic.

"You disgusting piece of shit," Ed whispered.

He took a few more heady, frantic breaths, and then opened his mouth to scream. Roy was faster, clamping a rough hand over it, muffling the noise. Something snapped in both of them, a revelation of sorts, and Roy had to muster up all his strength to keep Edward subdued.

The teen screamed curses against his hand, trying to bite his palm and succeeding but never drawing blood. Roy wrapped his other arm around the struggling blond, tightening his grip until Ed had trouble breathing. Something like a muffled sob escaped him, and he writhed in the Colonel's grasp, kicking and screaming and trying desperately to free his arms so he could hit the fucker.

Roy grew tired of the struggle and slapped him hard, the teen's head hitting the wall. The force of the blow made everything go black for a split second, and before he knew it he had slid to the floor, completely vulnerable. Roy hissed through his teeth, the image of the blond in such a helpless position seeming to stimulate even more blood in his body. Ed barely had time to look up at him with dark, innocent eyes, some of his hair such a disastrous mess that it fell across his face, when Roy fell on him and pinned him tightly to the ground.

"No!" Ed screamed, kicking at him but not connecting with his target. "No! Stop! Al! Alphon—"

Roy hit him again to shut him up, unaware and uncaring about how hard he had done it. He heard a thud as the boy's head smacked against the floor, but his heart, his brain, his fucking mind were all going too fast for him to hesitate. He took hold of soft gold locks, yanking the boy's head back and slapping a hand against his mouth again.

"What, you want to scream for your brother, you pathetic shit? Go ahead, cry for him, see if anyone saves you—" Ed bit down hard on his hand, pinching the skin and drawing blood. Roy cursed and released him, and the teen tried to crawl in the direction of the phone.

He choked on another scream as his shoulder was roughly grasped at.

"Fuck you!" Ed shouted, struggling against the colonel's iron grip. He shut his eyes and tried vainly to push Roy away, senses all heightened with adrenaline pulsing through his veins. His whole body convulsed and shuddered. Roy pinned the teen's wrists on either side of his head, grinding hard into him. "I'll fucking kill you—"

Roy kept both of the blond's wrists above his head, and then leaned down, crushing the boy with his heavier weight. He felt Edward trembling, and tasted salty tears as he lightly took his lip between his teeth, biting gently down and finally letting his tongue slip in the teen's all too hot mouth. A soft moan left him, as if he'd been deprived of something for so long and finally had it in his grasp.

Ed was completely still, letting his jaw and body relax as if that might lessen the sensations overpowering him. He kept his eyes open, terrified of letting anything happen that he wasn't expecting. He felt weak, and sick to his stomach, and could taste alcohol in his mouth, repulsive. This wasn't happening. Not to him, not now.

He stayed on the floor, too frightened to move, even as Roy released his wrists. The man's hands seemed to be everywhere at once; he felt them, rough and uncaring and desperate, wandering searchingly under his clothes. Hot lips on his throat. A wince as he felt those teeth mar his neck, but he just stared up at the ceiling, waiting for it to be over; waiting for it to stop. Tongue in his mouth again, foul, heated moans reverberating.

His eyes started to hurt. Hot tears dripped from dark lashes. "I have neighbors..." he whispered, letting out a sob as he felt the Colonel's wanton erection against his body, hard and sick. Roy ignored him, grinding and kissing and touching and panting. "They'd have heard me scream..."

"They won't care," Roy said, breathing harder. "No one gives a shit about you."

As his hands slid lower, he heard a small gasp. He briefly glanced into Ed's eyes through his own impassioned movements. There were tears in them, but the owner refused to let them fall. Even so, Roy could tell he was dangerously close to it. And the shimmer of tears made everything all too painfully clear.

Roy jumped back, away from the teen so that they were no less than a few inches apart. His palms tingled with phantom pleasure, his eyes burned with some dark dream, Edward's taste engraved in his memory (love and forget and deny). He craved more, but his guilt (fuck _me_). He stared at his hands, as if they were covered in some kind of sin, and then at Edward, shaking hard, with a god-awful look on his face.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Blood. The taste of blood in his mouth. Edward's lip was swollen with it, and the boy let out a soft cry, burying his head in his knees. Roy didn't know what to do, what to say; the events of the past few minutes kept replaying over and over in his brain, like a tape recording. Edward screaming as his small body was ravaged.

Roy turned away; he didn't want to see anymore. Didn't want to see the bruises or the mussed hair or the blood dribbling down the kid's face, lingering alongside tears. "Oh my God," he murmured, his voice hitching, the silence beating at his eardrums. He'd touched Ed, oh shit, he'd stumbled in drunk and touched Ed and now shit, fucking bullet in his ass—

He looked back at the crying blond on the floor, and approached him slowly, footsteps almost too quiet to hear. Ed didn't move, shrinking into a small ball-like shape as if that would solve everything. "I'm so sorry, Edward..." Roy said softly, reaching out to touch his shoulder. The blond flinched, shaking his head.

"Sorry? You're fucking _sorry_? Get the hell away from me," he muttered, dangerously low and dark. He curled up tighter, trying to cover himself up as best he could. "Just go..."

"You're overreacting, Fullmetal." Roy wanted to kill himself. He really did. Just douse himself in gasoline and light a match, snap his fingers, die slowly. But he couldn't let the kid know that. He forced authority again; channeled the Colonel inside, slipping behind a mask that hid the monster. "Of course, I wouldn't advise telling anyone about this little...incident—"

"I told you to stop," Ed cut in, voice strained and almost desperate. He finally looked up, and his eyes were full of dull anger and fear. "I told you to _stop _but you didn't listen to me." He glared at the man for a long while, teeth chattering, tears running down his face and dripping off his chin to forgotten spaces. "Get out. Just get out, don't you ever fucking look at me again—"

"I can't promise that," Roy murmured. But he swallowed. Nodded. A clammy sheen of sweat suffocating his skin. Edward Elric would never be able to escape him; but he wasn't going to say that. Hell. Roy Mustang couldn't even escape himself, how would a sixteen year old boy? They both knew he was addicted—addicted to a pretty little innocent, not quite innocent, and nothing was going to change that but the death of him or both of them.

* * *

Edward stayed on the floor, listening as the man's footsteps receded, receded, gone. The door shut. He got up after a few lonely moments, wanting to be certain Roy was gone and not coming back, and then bolted the door shut. He turned every lock, closed every curtain, turned off every light, and then rested against the front door.

And then the tears stinging his eyes became much. He put a hand to his head; he blocked out the thousands of thoughts going through it, and sunk to the floor. Leaning against the door with his knees drawn to his chest, he cried. He cried. Stood up, wandered the house in the dark, wary of the shadows that continued to stalk him.

The bedroom. Unlocked.

Open. Empty.

He laid down on the bed; it smelled like cinnamon and sweat and laundry detergent. The mattress conformed to his weight, sinking around it. "Why didn't you do anything?" He asked quietly, shoulders rounding as sobs attacked his weak form. He buried himself in the covers, hoping that they would eradicate the shivers and phantom touches of Roy Mustang.

"Goddamn it, answer me," he stuttered, hands roaming the bed, feeling for warmth, any warmth. He was so goddamn cold. "God, please." And trapped. He felt trapped. Empty, the taste of blood and alcohol on his tongue, the man's moans caught in his throat, echoing around the emptiness of his shell. The pressure on his body, all over it, suffocating, the feeling that he was _wrong _and dirty, and God—

"Al, come on, quit ignoring me. I know I was late, I know, but the fucker's...he's...goddamn it, talk to me." He twisted himself up in the sheets, wrapping himself in his brother's scent; he stared up at the ceiling, and the moon painted on it. "Please." His face twisted up through his tears. He wanted to throw up, but there was nothing to throw up. Another sob. "Don't leave me alone..."

The wind howled against the window; he jumped at the sound, and turned towards it, the curtain like a ghost in the darkness. He ignored it, closing his eyes, pressing his nose and mouth against the pillow so that the soft cotton diluted the bloody scents that tormented him. He knew, deep down, that Al was never going to speak to him again; that didn't bother him.

* * *

After all, Al was dead.


	2. Tempt

**Name:** THORNTON, Barbara Madison  
**Date of Birth: **8/21/78  
**Race:** White  
**Sex: **Female  
**Date of Death:** 2/02/2000  
**Body Identified By: **Erica Madison, sister of the deceased  
**Case #: **023034 - 22A - 2000  
**Investigative Department: **MIL.

**EVIDENCE COLLECTED:**

1. One (1) red dress of knee length.

2. One (1) pair black, high-heeled women's shoes, size 7.

3. Ten (10) samples collected from under the deceased's fingernails.

4. Samples of Blood (type B-), Bile, and Tissue (heart, lung, brain, kidney, liver, spleen).

5. Seventeen autopsy photographs.

6. One postmortem CT scan.

7. One postmortem MRI.

**Manner of Death:**

Homicide

**Immediate Cause of Death:**

Sharp force injury to the base of the tongue made with an instrument with a sharp end (3-cm in diameter) and at least 12cm in length.

**Time of Death:**

Body temperature, rigor and livor mortis, and stomach contents approximate the time of death between **9:00 P.M. 2/1/2000 and 1:00 A.M. 2/2/2000.**

**Remarks: **

Gratuitous wounds involve approximately 65% of the external upper torso, including chest, appendages, and the face. Made with an instrument with a sharp end (1/4-cm in diameter) and at least 1/2-cm in length. **  
**

_/Penny Dale, M.D._  
MIL. Jurisdiction Assoc., Central Country Sheriff's Department  
Feb. 4, 2000

* * *

_The woman screamed._

_She turned her head, amber eyes wide in terror – but Christ, too wide, and god, she saw everything. Footsteps, echoing closer; a body to match them. She ran. Tripped over her feet, collided head first into the stone floor. Blood filled her mouth like a copper rinse. She tried to stand, failing miserably as her trembling legs buckled beneath her. Shame, too, for they might have saved her life._

_A cold hand grabbed the back of her head, pulling her closer to a strange man's face. _

_He laughed at the tears running down her cheeks made a vicious slash at her neck. Blood spurted from a larger artery like a hot spring of macabre sentiments. She did not die, and he was grateful for that. He pried open her mouth; his fingers were black with dirt and soot, and tasted oddly of metal. His nails clawed the soft gum behind her bottom teeth, and she cried out as the sharp point of the knife dig into the back end of her tongue._

_A scream emanated from her limp body as the tongue was completely severed. She began to gag convulsively on her own crimson serum, a soft flop on the stone – cold – ground – _

Grounded. Ed's eyes flew open. Hot sweat beaded his forehead as he fought down the urge to vomit, held himself over a waste bin. Girl's face was like his mother's. Clenching his fist, he willed his nausea away. When he felt confident in its passing, he put a shaky hand to his mouth, breathing softly in the stillness of an empty office. The sweat dried up.

It sickened him to no end when he held the irrepressible knowledge that it was probably not just a nightmare.

He let out a weak sigh. The terrible things he had been required to read, sort through, and ultimately solve were more strenuous than anything he had ever done, not counting his and his brother's quest for the Philosopher's Stone. Maybe it was the fact that he had a particularly realistic, though admittedly morbid, imagination.

There was very little he could do about it. Replaying the crime in his head allowed him to form a more solid picture, hypothetical though it may be. If he failed, he would only have a terrifyingly long and complicated collage of information that was not understandable on its own. It was his job to take all of the pieces and carefully fit them together into a snug, _happy_ puzzle.

Martin Crème, the police chief, liked things sweetly simple.

Groaning, he rubbed his aching temples. It had been four days since he had received the first compilation of paperwork for the Charleston Murders. Six women and two men, all ranging from ages eleven to twenty-two, had been brutally mutilated and left for dead to drown in their own blood. It was worse than the infamous ice truck killings of the late nineties; the killings he had unwittingly become a part of when the chopper took him as prey. Dumb bastard. He still had scars, deep ones. But he hid those behind his uniform.

With some difficulty and a modesty he rarely displayed, he told himself that he was honestly intimidated by the Charleston Murders; they weren't for any ordinary person to tackle alone. Hell, Maes Hughes had dedicated a good chunk of his life to the case and had ended up dead. But he, Edward, wasn't ordinary. He was the Fullmetal Alchemist. Or he would be, if it weren't for the fact that any and all alchemical ability had been taken from him in a literal blood-red flash.

Before he could stop them, a new wave of thoughts and emotions came rushing into his mind; Al's eyes, his stone grey eyes, open, dead, bleeding. His body red and broken, newly regained flesh ripped and torn in a thousand little pieces…

His fist slammed onto the table top, scattering a few loose papers. No. Al was just a child. Compared to him, anyway. Jaw clenched, he kept his eyes glued to a single, completely arbitrary sentence at the top of a page. _Everett Mildon had been dead for approximately four and a half hours…_

Enough was enough.

The burning, burdening guilt never seemed to go away. A cruel voice (sometimes his own voice, sometimes his mother's voice, sometimes Roy's voice) kept him awake at night, telling him Al's death was his fault. He had killed his brother. He had ripped his brother's soul from his body, torn his innocence away and brought to life a sin that was as inescapable as his own incessant nightmares. They wandered for _three years_, searching for something that could make everything right again. And finally they found it.

The Philosopher's Stone._ But at the cost of what?_ His arm and leg were whole again. Al had, for a few blissful months, been more than steel. But every time Ed looked at his skin, he saw faces. And it hurt, knowing the faces didn't have names. They were sacrifices, meat on the table, feeding a monster that didn't give a damn. Grind bones to make bread.

"Hey, chief."

Ed whipped his head around, startled by the voice as well as the sound of a closing door. He watched as Jean Havoc approached him, frowning slightly. "What time is it?" He had shown up early for a reason, after all. Distraction of any kind wasn't an option.

Havoc shrugged, exhaling in a cloud of cigarette smoke. "Six thirty. Same time I always get here. Is that a problem, mister hormonal?"

Ed's gaze softened. "Uh, no. Sorry. I must have…lost track of the time…" His face turned a light shade of red as he busied himself, piling the out-of-order papers messily into their proper folder. He lightly brushed a loose strand of hair behind his ear, well aware that Havoc was staring at him, and steadily growing more nervous because of it. Even if he had tried to forget, had tried to pretend it was all a nightmare, he could feel the ghost of Mustang's hands all over his body.

"Roy's not here?" Havoc asked, propping his feet up on his desk as he sat down. After abandoning his first cigarette, he pulled out a fresh pack and began to tap it against the palm of his hand. "Strange. Usually he's the first one."

Ed stiffened. "After the lieutenant." Of course the Colonel would be late. He wished the man a horrifyingly painful hangover; he deserved it, after all. The idea of Mustang in physical agony was enough to make him smile just a bit on the inside. "I don't know. Probably had a lousy date and tried to kill himself. Fucker."

Havoc snickered, flicking his lighter. He inhaled, and breathed out deeply before replying, "Wouldn't doubt it, the bastard." His lip twitched a bit, remembering Lizzie, nice girl, very curvy and blond. Roy had taken her to see _Les Miserables_. He didn't even know what the fuck that meant, but Lizzie must have liked it or Havoc wouldn't have caught her groping Roy in the back of a bar.

Ed slid the folder into a desk drawer before promptly closing it with a thump. He didn't want to see anymore. The pictures didn't bother him, but the descriptions did. And he had to keep skipping a particularly disturbing page, which sort of pissed him off because he was a goddamn detective cringing away from dead kids. If anything, he would go over the evidence in his head over break, though there wasn't much to work with.

The Charleston murderer was a fucking sneak. He killed the women slowly. Most killers sympathized with their victims. Cut their throats, strangled them, and then raped them or tortured them or baked them to satiate a fucked up fetish for cannibalism. No. The dance went its own way. Nine till five. Wanted to see how long they could squirm, lashed to walls with barbed wire and knives through the palm.

"Something on your mind?" Havoc asked. He had his eyes closed, smoke twisting lazily toward the ceiling, but Ed couldn't shake the feeling that Havoc had been watching him. He felt his face redden darkly, and turned so that his back faced the man.

Ed wanted to smile, oh so bad. Of course nothing was wrong. He was alone, forced into a corner full of murder and sexual threat, but nothing was on his mind. Nothing but, well, breakfast perhaps, the prospect of watching paint dry in the lower corridor of Central command. But nothing was _wrong_. "No. Why would you say that?"

"No reason," Havoc answered, almost too quickly. He let the subject drop, flicking some loose ash into the bin by his feet. Slowly, as though it were an afterthought, he added casually, "You're…okay, then?" He leveled his gaze with the boy, his aqua eyes suddenly taking on a more serious light.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ed snapped, resisting the gravity of his stare. The files, the files, the files, the murders, the girls, the victims. He was not a victim. Don't let him see your eyes, Ed, he'll see Mustang and he'll see you and then he'll know and you can't afford that. Not. A. Problem. Nothing wrong, not wrong. _  
_

"It's just a question." Havoc paused. "Didn't mean anything by it. Do you usually act like a girl this early in the morning?"

"Okay, if you're so goddamn curious, think of it this way. What the fuck did you do at sixteen? Hop cars and get high?"

Jean looked away and down, a frown creasing the flesh on his face.

"I go to crime scenes and try not to let people get killed. Then, when the fuckers _upstairs _decide I'm not being useful enough, the roles switch and I go to war zones and try not to let people live." He turned abruptly to leave; he needed to get out where questions and bulging files couldn't get to him, and suddenly the cold wintry air sounded welcoming. "Seriously just…don't fuck with me today."

* * *

"First Lieutenant Hawkeye," Roy muttered, looking anywhere but her direction. He felt hot, too hot, and this uniform didn't feel good against his skin like she did. Once upon a time. "Please, organize this for me. The officer who wrote the report was an idiot, he didn't follow regulations. I swear to God, they teach the new kids how to hold a gun and think they're trained properly."

He handed her the file, and then began scribbling his name down repeatedly, flipping stapled pages and completely ignoring her. He suspected he didn't have any idea what he was doing; he could be signing an okay for an investigation or putting an officer to death, but strangely it didn't care.

"Yes, sir," she responded, eyes gliding briefly over the man's slightly downtrodden appearance. Roy supposed she must have been taking in his appearance with skepticism. Perhaps she was alarmed that he could look so hungover and still manage to get anything done, especially in this volume. Still. Anything to distract her from the sin that touched his hands.

Roy watched her return to her seat. With an exasperated sigh of one disinterested in the meaningless slog of everyday life, he examined the next stack of paperwork. A grim smile passed before his lips. Speaking of sins. "Major Elric."

The boy shot him a death glare from beneath a mess of blond hair. A ballpoint pen poised in his hand, marred by teeth markings. He had a proper desk now, right besides Havoc and Breda. He trusted them to keep an eye on Edward, and they did their job well, often at the expense of the teenager's temper. Reluctantly, Ed let out of a heavy sigh and shuffled his way over to the Colonel's desk.

"The fuck do you want, Mustang?" He asked, crossing his arms. He was on guard; Roy could tell from his posture, his disposition.

"You're doing a case independently right now, correct?"

Ed nodded, staring at the floor.

"So you'll be all the more eager to do a little work for me sooner than later, eh?" He looked pleased as Ed grimly examined the folder in his hands. It was like giving extra homework to a rather annoyed high school student. "Don't look so down, kiddo. It's just a few things about you. A couple of surveys, a questionnaire, agreements and regulations."

"Had a hard night?" Ed asked smugly, reaching out for the file.

Roy held the folder a bit higher, so that Edward couldn't reach it. The kid had gotten taller, there was no denying that, but not enough. Not yet. "Oh, very hard." He opened an eye knowingly, feeling that fluttery, drugged feeling come up in his chest again like stomach flu. "But you should know…" he whispered, gaze flickering toward his other subordinates, making sure they were out of earshot, "I enjoyed your company, Edward..."

Ed just stared at him, swallowing hard. He didn't blink, didn't say a word, just stared.

Mustang found it amusing. The kid had that look again, like he was the adult dealing with an incompetent toddler. Roy desperately wanted to hit him, then himself. He was treading real fucking deep water here. But now matter how hard he tried to reach the surface, he decided to hold out another minute, just to see if he could. He liked that glint in Edward's eyes, the one of both challenge and fear.

The boy made a quick swipe at the file, and managed to snag it lightly with his fingertips. Roy allowed it before gently catching his wrist, pulling him just a fraction closer. "I told you I was sorry."

Ed ignored him, trying as quietly as possible to pull out of his grasp. When he found the attempt futile, he sighed and mumbled, "Let me go, Mustang."

"I'm apologizing to you for my incredulous behavior. Isn't that what you were going to request anyway? A private meeting later so you could scream at me, kick my ass? Fine. I know I was wrong, I know it. Making advances I couldn't commit to." He lowered his eyes with some regret. "I can't control myself anymore. Please forgive me."

Ed jerked his arm away, and Roy had no choice but to release him. Their voices were a heated whisper, like the rustle of dry grass. "You...I can't do that. It wasn't a fucking _advance_, it was..." Ed discovered he couldn't find the words he had a moment ago wanted to say, and merely stood awkwardly, feeling somehow ashamed. He didn't want to say anything that implied the non-consensual, because the mere thought made him feel sick and helpless for reasons he couldn't explain.

"Don't be so dramatic," Roy said after a pause. Then with a wry smile, one that made him ache, one that made a mad rush of pleasure shoot through his veins, he said softly, "You never got so angry all of those other times I touched you…"

Ed's eyes burned with well-contained anger. That was then, this was now, this was a place where laws and society had a place. Laws he knew about, safety he cared about. He had been a child. "That was not even close to fucking being the same thing and you know it. Touching me is not the same thing as holding me down and..." He trailed off into the safety of silence. "It was different. Case closed. Can I go now?"

Roy nodded, numbly accepting his words. The deep tones of his vocal chords sounding just a bit strained, he muttered, "I don't even…remember much. Did I – I didn't hurt you, did I?" He examined the boy's face, noticing the shadow of bruise, so faint but still existing. There was something strangely moving, strangely powerful, about it; like proof of his own delusions, proof of the darkness that twisted through his core.

"Don't you dare start apologizing to me now," Ed growled low, ignoring the question directly. "Not when I've got other things on my mind. I can't handle your stupid mind games. You want to act worried, act worried, but don't try pushing your goddamn emotions on me, when you know goddamn well you're going to do this again."

Roy cringed a bit at that one. "You know, you weren't exactly being agreeable. You completely overreacted. Are still overreacting." He frowned disapprovingly, the cold edge of insanity carving his heart out piece by piece. When he spoke again, he had lowered his voice to little more than a dulcet, quieting whisper, pulling Ed so close that his breath tickled at the teen's ear, "I know you better than you do, Edward."

Ed shivered, eyes widening slightly at the hidden implications, and tried to pull away. "The _fuck _are you talking about? What the fuck does that mean?"

"Look at me," Roy commanded in a fierce mutter, jerking Ed towards him. The teen obeyed, though his eyes were narrowed to angry, rebellious slits. "Just because you think I'm a self-centered son of a bitch doesn't I'm deaf to rumors. I know you've been fucking around. I know you have. You fuck around, you get in the military's belt. You do all the things you could get shot for."

The teen swallowed something sick and dry, and wrenched his wrist away from Roy's tight, painful grip. He rubbed at it for a moment, identifying a bright red mark on flesh. "You're crazy."

"You're beautiful. You know you are. You know that men are weak, you know that if you play your cards right, they'll get weak for you. So you seduce them. You come in here, all pretty eyes and lithe body, and you let them fuck your little brains out over the office floor." Roy smiled. He couldn't help it. There was something sickly satisfying in his own words, though he was honestly frightened by how much weight they held. He didn't actually believe that the kid sold himself out to the highest bidder, and even if he did, he'd have to kill the bastard that won. "Do I speak the truth?"

"I take it back, you're not crazy. You're disgusting, and delusional, and these stupid fucking perverted fantasies of yours are just that, fantasies. Just leave me alone." Edward was very still, looking over Roy's shoulder as if the man were invisible. The sun was low in the sky; it was about afternoon, though not time to leave yet. He wished it was.

"I don't have to. You're already alone." Roy handed the file over to Ed. A tiny knife pricked his heart, but he mentally pulled it out and flicked it away. "By the way, we need to talk," was his cryptic answer, looking like a cat that had just swallowed a particularly delicious canary. "Stay after we let out today."

Edward didn't salute as he left him behind, ignoring the opal eyes following his back and roaming up and down his body. Unconsciously, it made him tremble, though he would never admit that. After four years of on again, off again worry and concern, the goddamn _bipolar _shit he had had to deal with – a few comments and an idle threat meant absolutely nothing.

_

* * *

_

Havoc stayed behind as his co-workers scrambled to pack up for the day, his movements almost purposefully slow. He seemed to have a curious fascination with arranging his pencils eraser-end up in their holding tin. Ed noticed that he kept glancing in his direction, trying to make some eye contact, and he had an unsettling feeling about it.

Disconcerting.

"I saw Mustang talking to you earlier," Jean said casually, still captivated by the pencils. "What about?" Careful.

Edward shrugged, sliding the Charleston files into his shoulder bag. Something sunk in his stomach, but he didn't let it show. Better let Jean think nothing was wrong. Because nothing was wrong. "I kind of did something I'm ashamed of. It's sort of between me and the Colonel. Don't worry."

"Are you sure?"

"Fullmetal," Mustang called to Ed, breaking him away from thought.

"Yeah. I'm coming."

Mustang looked toward Jean. "We're to be speaking _privately_."

Havoc hesitated, but he nodded nonetheless. "Yes, sir."

Ed listened stiffly as the door closed, and exhaled when he was certain of being the sole occupant of the room with Mustang. "What is it you needed me to be _alone_ for, sir?"

Roy smiled. That creepy fucking smile on that creepy fucking face. "Relax, Fullmetal. I don't bite." Liar. He stood, walking with heavy steps towards the window and gazing out into a cloudless crimson sky. "Sit down if you want. I'd like to have a little chat." His voice echoed oddly around the room, mingling with the ticking clock to instill a sense of loneliness and melancholy.

The words spoken were simple, business-like, hardly constituting as to what they implied. But Ed knew that Roy was only trying to draw him in, keep him quiet one last time before it happened again, and then he would find himself in the same situation. It was a circle, and a damn annoying one, but it was a pattern Ed had become quite used to.

So he obeyed. He pulled his blue jacket closer to his body, and reluctantly lowered himself into the dark leather sofa. He folded his arms across his chest, eyes closing. "Well, talk."

Roy chuckled a bit, finding Edward's reflection in the shining windowpane and feeling an immediate warmth course through his veins. No matter what happened, and no matter how Edward would ever feel about him, he could always depend on his emotions. Those never changed. "I think I'm in love with you."

Ed stiffened, but said nothing. One step. Two steps. Followed by another, and another, echoing dismally, before the shadow of heat and darkness fell upon him and he felt coarse fingers cup his chin, tilting his head towards the light. Only then did he finally unlock his eyes, finding midnight orbs staring deeply into his own. He sucked in a soft breath, his stomach dropping into oblivion.

He opened his mouth to speak, to protest, squirm, but Roy glared at him, somehow managing to intimidate him into settling further back into the sofa. He tried to breathe, aware of every sound he made. "No, don't speak. You told me to do the talking so that's what I'll do."

Ed was strangely lulled by the sound of his voice, smooth and powerful in its own charisma; he could understand, but not appreciate, why so many women wanted him. He wanted to run, but felt stranded, weighted down by invisible tethers. Roy had control.

A strong, sick shiver melted into his nerves. Roy's hand lightly resting against his cheek. Another hand on the back of the couch, and he suddenly realized that a quick chat wasn't at all what the man had in mind. He had no idea if Roy had been drinking or not, but judging by the glazed look around his pupils and the open drawer of his desk, Ed had little to no doubts.

Roy whispered things in his ear, so soft he couldn't understand them. He blinked his eyes open and shut, his breathing audibly shaken, as Roy's hand slowly moved from his face to the back of his neck, rubbing gently against the fabric of his uniform jacket. He tried displacing himself from the situation; focusing on another point in the room, but there was nothing. The man kissed his ear, sliding his hand so very slyly between his legs, and he jerked back, beyond vocal protest.

"Say something, you said you'd...talk..." Ed mumbled, straining backwards into the warm leather, "You said you'd talk..." Oh, God. No. His teeth were beginning to chatter, a click against the hush of leather and cloth against each other. Roy was on him, all over him, heavy weight on his small bones. He couldn't breathe, nothing but alcohol and hot cologne, the touch of rough hands underneath the boundaries.

"Why so tense, Fullmetal?" Roy groaned, further, further, further still, following his escaping prey until they were nearly flesh onto flesh. Clothes still separated them, and he wouldn't go that far, not now, maybe not ever.

"Get your filthy fucking hands off of me," Ed meant to shout, though the words came out somewhere between a breathy whimper and uncertain pleading. He struggled to take air into his lungs, heaviness growing at the corners of his eyes. "Stop!" He shrieked, Roy's unbearably hot lips sucking at his throat, eyes squeezing shut as tears streamed freely.

"I can't, Ed. I've tried, tried so many times, but we've both been really bad. We need punishment," he said in a gravelly whisper, hard erection suddenly demanding contact. He slid his jacket off of his shoulders, straddling the small body with his own. He felt so disgustingly dirty and low, but he couldn't stop, couldn't and wouldn't stop. Too far, maybe, too far, but his cock was so fucking hard and he needed something warm to...satiate...

No.

"You can pretend I'm someone else if you want," he soothed mockingly, gripping the boy's head tightly, running his thumbs along the blond's silken hair before leaning forward into a hard, strong kiss. Ed's scream reverberated around his mouth, tasting so deliciously fearful and desperate he wanted more. Needed him to scream again.

He forced his tongue fully into the small mouth, until he was certain that the only precaution was Edward not having too much to handle. He bit down a bit on the blond's lip, tearing into him like an animal; God, he put a whole other twist on the word sweet. Eventually, the boy started tasting like salt and copper, as well. He pulled back, expecting fear, but certainly not so much of it. It tugged painfully at his heartstrings. "You're so goddamn _beautiful_, Ed, I don't know why no one's tried this on you before..."

"Let me go or I swear to fucking God I'll scream," Edward sobbed, familiar wetness painting his cheeks. The hard press of Mustang's arousal into his leg told him that the man was getting off on his pleading, on his weakness. The fucker actually liked seeing him that way. He cried harder, hoping to God, please, for someone to hear him, rush in, save him, no, no, no.

"Let me _go,_" Ed said, avoiding Roy's watchful glare, gaining the courage to swallow bitter tears. He waited, counting the seconds. When it became apparent that the other man was not going to answer, caught in a sudden inspirational guilt trip, he spoke up again. "Please…please just let me go."

_"I thought he was gonna kill me - I thought I was gonna die - "_

_Planes overhead. _

_Don't shoot, don't shoot, just a kid, don't shoot. _

_"Shoot the fucking brat, Fullmetal!" _

_Edward. _

_"Help, Roy, please, the gun's jammed, I can't do it, I can't - "_

_"Stand back, Ed." _

_Flame, flame, flame. _

_That's what they called me, ten years ago today. _

_"No! No!"_

_"Get away from her, Ed! She's gone, you can't save her!" _

_"She's still screaming, stop! Let me go, damn it! Let me go!"  
_

Roy continued to stare, his jaw trembling slightly, his eyes snapping wide open. He delicately traced the edge of the teen's cheekbone, but winced away as soon as Ed turned his head. The body beneath him was shaking hard, and it jolted him with the same impact as an earthquake. He jumped to his feet, panting heavily, horrified by a repeated sin.

"Colonel…could I go home?" Ed asked with an edge of fear in his voice. He used a shaky hand to steady himself as he rose, eyes never leaving Roy as though afraid of being attacked. Some of his hair had fallen loose from the band wrapped around it, and Roy tried to look away, the impulse to push him back down and finish the job so tempting he nearly did it.

"I want you to go home," Roy said, walking over to his desk resignedly. "Yes, go home, Edward." The adrenaline that had so recently flooded his veins was gone, leaving him tired and weak. His head was temporarily clear, at least until he could intoxicate it again to dull the pain and any coherent thought. He didn't want to think, and he didn't want Ed to be at his mercy when he was finally out of it. "Did you hear me? I said to go."

Ed nodded, but did not show any inclination to leave. He was rooted to the spot. Roy could only vaguely imagine what must have been running through the boy's head.

He sighed, sitting down and reaching for one of his desk drawers. He watched Ed from the corner of his eye as he searched, rifling through forgotten papers. There was only one thing on his mind now. "Edward, if you don't leave, I'm going to have to shove you out the door." Don't let me touch you again.

"I'm going," Ed replied at last. He hesitated, biting his lower lip. "I have something to do." The sentence was ambiguous and oddly unsettling, but Roy paid no more than a few scant seconds of attention to it. Ed still wobbled and trembled as he walked toward the door, screaming at himself for falling into a trap, for falling into – for fucking _crying -_

"Yeah...sure," Roy said, taking out a bottle with trembling fingers. It was already half-empty. "Yes, Ed, just go..."

Roy raised it to his lips, the strong liquid flooding his mouth. His eyes burned, already red and raw from lack of sleep and previous endeavors. He wouldn't stop, couldn't stop...

Not until Edward's footsteps had faded completely. Only then did he slow down, brain beginning to float dully in the land of the lonely, where he would (as always) contemplate a self-inflicted death.


	3. Hate

Loose gray stones crunched beneath Edward's feet, the dewy grass on the side of the path glowing in the tranquil moonlight. He could not see where the path ended, twisting and suffocated by the graveyard surrounding; it was devoid of life, of course, but that didn't stop him from keeping his head down. Perhaps he was afraid of the corpses' hollow, hidden eye sockets, deep beneath the ground. They saw without seeing.

He counted the rows of gravestones in his head, the sleepy scent of wet grass and earth comforting him despite what they covered. He stopped at a spot that looked identical to all of the others, topped with polished gray stone that served only as a reminder of the deceased. It was a pathetic little plot easily devoured by the hundreds around it, but to Edward it meant heaven, hell, and purgatory combined.

This was where his brother was buried, after all.

"Hey," he whispered, voice hindering in his throat. He wasn't an idiot; knew Al wouldn't ever hear him. Once the body died it was the end, no spiritual strings attached. If Alphonse did linger on somewhere, certainly he would have tried to contact Ed at some point, right? They were scientists. They could find ways. "Sorry I'm late."

He knelt down on the ground, softly touching the letters engraved on the rock. The moist earth soaked into the fabric of his pants with a dark stain. Even with his eyes closed, he could trace every letter, read every word. Dead at fifteen. "Alphonse…"

He was caught in an odd twilight universe; neither the land of the living or dead. He would immerse himself in it for hours at a time, numb. Often he wished he could simply drown in the murky depths of his own mind, and cease thinking altogether. He had so much medication in the pantry, tucked away. He was just waiting for the right moment to swallow.

"But that isn't what you would want," he said with a guilty shake of the head. "But you're all alone down there, right? Think they'd bury me here? It should have been me anyway...don't you dare think otherwise, because I'm the one that deserved to die." He clutched the grass tightly with a closed fist, fighting the tears that threatened to cascade downward. He'd been crying enough as it was.

Bright green threads had already sprouted over Al's grave. Time had done its job and passed by. And as it had done so, Ed's emotions had caught up with his mind, had finalized what he had desperately tried to deny and ignore. But there could be no more avoidance of the truth. The murderer, no matter his personal intentions, was going to find him some day. Ed would make sure of it. Ed would make sure the bastard cut him nice and slow.

"I think I'm getting closer," he said with a pained smile, "To who killed you."

He let the words linger in the air. He felt them on his lips and breathed deeply; for some reason, the lie seemed so much more real when he said it to a dead person. A chilled breeze grazed his shoulder, stirring his already tousled hair. He bent a fraction lower to the ground, squeezing his eyes shut tight as he finally gave in to their burning.

He put a shaky hand to his mouth and leaned against the marble stone. He looked up at the cloudy gray sky, wondering if he was truly alone or if there were millions of invisible eyes staring back at him, the lost souls of the universe, crying for him to help though he could not hear.

A faint buzzing began in the back of his mind, and he strained to listen. There were conversations, fleeting and fragmented; he didn't understand who the voices belonged to. But they were familiar. He knew, and he suddenly had to close his eyes and listen, listen to the echoes of memory.

* * *

_It was like something out of one of his darkest nightmares. An old warehouse, creaky and abandoned, with heavy iron doors rusting into umber dust. There were people around him, ghosts on the wall, the bright artificial light of investigation and the snapping of photographs_—_click_—_snap_—_a high pitched whine_—

_Edward blinked, dark tawny eyes on the winding, congealing trail of red blood under the door. Somewhere in the building, an officer laughed as he jumped the stairs two at a time, landing with a loud boom on the weak metal platform overseeing ancient manufacture. Edward took a step forward, the blood glinting, but jumped as a strong hand closed around his arm._

"_Ed, you need to go." _

"_Why?" _

"_This is for the investigations department. I can't allow you to interfere," Hughes whispered, sickened grief hidden in the strained lines of his face. He gripped Ed tightly, bending down to the child's level so that he could make his message clearer. Edward didn't pull away, the sad, truthful glint behind Hughes' glasses seeming to damn the world around him. "You don't need to see this."_

_Ed focused intently on the forensics team as they entered the strange, blood-filled room. In a disconnected voice that was disturbingly unlike his own, he whispered, "It's Alphonse, isn't it?" _

_Hughes bit the inside of his cheek, and then glanced back at the rusted door. A man with bloody plastic gloves exited, shaking his head with a nauseous expression. "Yes," he admitted in soft tones. "Why don't you go wait in the car? Lock the doors and make sure someone can see you. I'll take you to my place tonight." He made to softly push the boy toward the stairwell.  
_

"_Let go of me," Ed said. He mechanically touched Hughes' hand and shrugged it off. He took another step forward, movements slow, disbelieving. No, Alphonse was just playing a sick and unfunny game. He had just seen him a few hours ago, had just touched him a few hours ago_—

_"Ed_—_no, don't go in there!" Maes insisted with more force than usually necessary when it came to Edward. But Ed's mind was made up, and there was no changing it. He put a hand over his eyes, trying in vain to erase the images, seeing dead children and his own Elysia covered in a fine sheen of dark blood.  
_

_Ed entered hesitantly, the strong scent of what could only be described as meat filling his nostrils. It reminded him of butcher shops, pigs and chickens lining back rooms, hanging from hooks with runny pink liquid streaming from slimy bodies. There was the same pink-clear liquid in this room, thickening as it progressed, a trail that spattered in inconspicuous places.  
_

_There was no lack of evidence, to be sure. He heard the investigators chatting in the echoing darkness, their hushed conversations lost as he walked. There was a dripping, and his shoes stuck to the clotting blood on the floor._

"_Al?" he whispered. The forensic team turned their heads to look at him, and then away. They knew who he was, knew that the mangled body was his brother, but the silence was very comfortable. They stared more deeply into their coffee.  
_

_Al's eyes were open, staring hollowly like some sort of demonic glass ball. Blood flowed freely from open wounds, whole_—fuck—_chunks of flesh ripped out of his bare chest, the darkened cavity within pink and red and black. Purple bruises had flowered on his toes, his feet, as the remaining blood in his body had pooled there; his hands were missing, severed at the wrist as though with a dull bladed knife, coarse muscle and bone sticking out sickeningly. _

_His mouth was twisted in a permanent scream, tongue lopped off and discarded on the floor to gather dust and attract the creatures of the darkness; he was hanging by the throat, barbed wire cutting into what was left of the jugular vein and breaking the frozen flesh. Edward's eyes never produced tears. He could hear himself breathe, shakily, as he reached out to touch his brother's naked body. _

_He felt stiff. Locked. His joints didn't move, his skin was tough as leather and cold to the touch. Black and blue bruises stretched across the body, cuts and scrapes and more mutilation_—_Ed looked down, and found - in the black stretch of the night - there was a pool of blood there, and in it, he could see his own reflection_—

_He gagged, retching and falling to the floor, fists clenched. His reflection stirred into distorted images. His gloved fingers soaked up blood; he could feel it on his skin, squirming and uncomfortable, seeping into his clothes and coating his hair…he was screaming, screaming like he never had in his life...  
_

_There was a voice in his ear, a person holding him very tightly as he shut out the sound of what seemed to be a thousand voices and his own mindless cries of protest, sobs ricocheting off the walls unpleasantly.  
_

"_Ed…we have to go, there's nothing we can do for him now…" It was Roy's voice. Roy's low, terrible, wonderful voice, calling him back from everything that frightened him.  
_

* * *

Ed stood up, brushing the grass from his uniform, stretching. Every muscle in his body ached. He definitely wasn't looking forward to walking home, but couldn't drive, seeing as cars scared the living shit out of him. No, he wanted nothing to do with those. Too much power, too many things to go wrong. Like unexpected explosions.

He took one last look at the tombstone, a weak smile crossing his face for a brief instant. "Goodbye, Alphonse. I'll be back tomorrow night. Like always." He started to walk away, resisting the urge to turn back. It was too late. If it weren't for Mustang, he would have had more time to spend talking to Al. Yet another reason to hate the man.

He stopped, glancing over the tall black fence of the cemetery, out toward the flagpole that marked the plots reserved strictly for those in the military. He made a mental note to visit Hughes soon. He'd seen that man dead, as well. Not a pretty memory by any means, but he'd had enough of that crap for one night.

* * *

Roy was on a green hill, cool and calm; he didn't feel human, not quite dead but not quite alive. It was like a paradise for the damned. And yet there was something in the air, something he couldn't quite put a name to. Fire?

Yes.

He was in hell, obeying something far more powerful than he, Satan in a lower form. He was surrounded by smoky fire, he was listening to screams, he was looking into the eyes of a fifteen year old boy with red eyes. He shook as he held his fingers a breadth of a centimeter apart. He didn't want to die, didn't want to disobey, but damn it he didn't want to kill either.

But the child held something in his hands, and all of a sudden Roy was being pulled downward into blackness, submerged in a bloody ocean and listening to someone sobbing hysterically. He watched from the shadows of a dark building, listening to a voice he recognized clearly, screaming.

And then he was there, staring into golden eyes, back in Ishbal, only this time it was Edward on the ground with a weapon, and _this time_…

"You killed Alphonse," the boy whispered.

Roy shook his head, pulling Ed closer, struggling against the irresistible emotions that clogged his every rational thought. "I didn't." But a small voice in his head told him he was wrong, told him it was a lie; that he had killed Alphonse, and then taken everything else away from his older brother without a second thought.

"You'll kill me, too."

Roy tried to comprehend the words being said, and then Ed literally shattered, now no more than a pile of ashes at his feet. The little voice grew louder…louder, until it was an incessant, abominably loud ringing in Roy's ears…

His head shot up.

There was sudden deadly silence; he felt hot sweat clinging to his face, and a clammy sickness about him. His heart beat ferociously in his chest, banging against his ribcage. He smelled his own fear and desperation, lingering and wafting through the dark office.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, blanketing the green tile of the floor. It took him a moment to discover the ringing had continued well out of his nightmares, and was emanating from the phone situated on the desk in front of him. He looked to the previously half-empty bottle of vodka. The earlier remnants had all but disappeared.

Groggily, he reached a tired hand toward the telephone, only vaguely wondering who could have been calling him that late at night. Or how the caller even knew he was still at headquarters. "What?" he said into the mouthpiece, slightly irritated. He cared little for formalities at the moment, but if it was a higher up he knew he'd be damned.

"This is Roy Mustang, correct?" The other voice asked. It was a man, but certainly not any soldier or secretary Roy knew.

"Who wants to know?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head. It ached like he had hit it on something, though he couldn't recall any accidents. One look at the empty bottle of vodka on his right and the sluggish manner of his movements told him everything he needed to know.

The voice turned distinctly pleasant and professional, small pauses between choice words. The speaker certainly had a way with his vocabulary, affluently dissecting and piecing together the language as though it were as simple as breathing. "I suppose you might say I'm your guardian angel."

Roy's eyebrows furrowed. He smiled slightly, a drunken laugh escaping his lips. "Wait, what?"

The other man chuckled. "I hear you've been having bad dreams, Mustang. God sent me to help out."

"God? I hate to break it to you, but he doesn't exist. I know from plenty of experience." Roy didn't often humor prank calls, but he couldn't help it. Perhaps he was a little _too _lonely and depressed. The only late night calls he endorsed were from giggling teenage girls, because those darkly amused him. He needed to get laid.

"Trust me, after everything you're about to go through, you're going to believe. Don't take experience so lightly. He doesn't give everyone the same lenses with which to see the world." There was a thoughtful pause. "The word 'he' sounds a bit sexist. God may very well be a woman, Mustang."

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Roy muttered, rubbing his eyes. The prank was deep, and he had to admire the stranger for it. The intellectual inside was waking up, as though the man's words were laced with phonetic coffee. "I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name. Why are you calling?"

"I don't intend to interrupt your little pity party, not yet at least. I'm very concerned for you, Mustang. That's all. You're so very sad and you deserve so much better. Vodka is not exactly the rich man's intoxicant—seeing you glutton yourself on such things makes this angel sympathetic."

"Wait, how do you know about the vodka?"

"I can see everything," the voice answered mysteriously. "Oh, yes. I know about that little drinking problem of yours, Mustang. I know about the dreams. The bars, the women, the drugs. Things you wouldn't tell anyone, not even Maes if he were alive. And I suppose it might be a bit bold of me to mention, but I'm well aware of what you've done to that pretty child in your command as well—"

"What the hell are you talking about? Who put you up to this?" Roy demanded, blood running cold in his veins as the man laughed in response. He had always been careful, and as far as he was concerned, Edward had always kept his mouth shut out of shame. He detected the subtle hint of blackmail; if this man was associated with the military, he could have easily reported him for sexual assault. Why taunt him, and on the phone, adding salt to the wound? "Answer me."

The stranger shushed him, and Roy swallowed, hot sweat beading on his flesh. A thousand powerful urges swam like eels in the pit of his stomach. Suicide, running, finding Ed and beating the _fuck _out of him. How else would this 'angel' have known he'd touched the kid?

"Just _relax_. Any man has a skeleton or two in the closet. My only concern is your happiness, and if you need him to feel happy, then so be it," the man said gently, as if threading peace through the holes of the telephone. "Trust me when I say that I'm going to help you get through this."

"I seriously doubt that. You say you're an angel? Prove it." Roy burrowed his hand in his desk drawer, pulling out some hard liquor he couldn't pronounce. He took a deep swig of it, gulping down and nodding as information and insignificant particles of his past were read to him as if from a series of note cards. None of it mattered - a child could get the facts from the internet if he wanted. "Not impressed."

"I didn't think you would be," the voice said condescendingly. "Worth a try."

Roy snickered, drinking down more of the heavy liquid; maybe if he got drunk enough, when the police arrived to cart him off he'd snap and suicide bomb the place with his fingers. That would be the end of it. Angel or not, the fucker on the other end of the telephone had a way with words, and if his last moments as a free man could be spent listening to philosophical soliloquy, so be it.

The stranger breathed deep. "You were born on October 11th, 1970, to a poor writer and his immigrant wife from Xing. In 1974, your mother died giving birth to twins. One of those twins survived and grew to be an Ishballan convert, so you disowned him. Your father shot himself in 1984. In 1989, in a bunker in Ishbal, you met Maes Hughes, who incidentally died this winter while driving to pick his daughter up from preschool. You're the only one who knows his last words."

Roy couldn't breathe. He had never told those things to anyone. Personal ties and weaknesses were kept a secret, and for good reason. If captured on the battlefield, the creeps that tortured you for information would cut straight into your heart - kill the ones you loved - before any pain was inflicted. "How did you get this number?" he asked shakily, gripping the phone with white fingers.

"I have all the numbers," the voice replied with the same smug, cryptic tone he had used on Edward hours earlier. "Don't mind that I know the things I do. I'm only here to help. And now that I've established that, tell me what's troubling you. Tell me what these nightmares contain."

"Why should I tell you anything?" Roy would never reveal his darkest dreams to a total stranger; never admit that he had cried himself to sleep on some nights, seeing the eyes of the people he'd killed, those ghosts fading into night as the blankets twisted themselves around him. Never admit that the dreams might turn into hot, sinful fantasies of Ed _screaming _in shattering, orgasmic pleasure -

"I already know everything about you. You may as well let out your feelings, Roy. It's called therapeutic conversation. Every word from your lips is like another drop of poison being extracted from your soul. Save yourself. Give in to me." The man sighed, and Roy sunk lower in his chair.

"Let out my feelings?" he asked, licking his lips quickly as he thought. "Save myself? You mean, ignore what I've done? All of the horrible, horrible things that I've done? You think I can just forget about them. It's not that simple."

"Yes. You've done terrible things. You've slaughtered helpless people. You've hurt Edward, something you swore you would never let anyone do. I'm not going to pretend you haven't committed misgivings, because I'm a particularly honest angel, but you can be forgiven quite mercifully."

Roy nodded. "But I never meant to hurt them." A flash of a memory flickered into his brain, and he shut it out quickly, afraid to see the details within. Tears that looked like diamonds, dyed red in the bloody sunset. "I never wanted to kill those people." He was a soldier. It was his job. He was a machine, created and put to use. How utterly dehumanizing.

"But you did," the man admonished. "Even God can't change the past. And what you did…it would make any mortal want to destroy themselves for the sheer enormity of their sin. Are you that ashamed, Mustang?"

"Well, you should know," Roy said, voice noticeably cracking. "If you really are working for God, which I'll blindly agree with for now, you'll remember that I tried to kill myself."

"You never tried, Mustang. You were too weak to try."

Roy laughed bitterly, tracing an invisible circle on his desk. "Maybe you're right. But I still wanted to die, didn't I?"

"That you did, and still do."

"Right, thanks for telling me what I already know," Roy replied, suddenly annoyed. Was he really that transparent and readable, so that a complete stranger could give him advice? He leaned back further in his chair, gazing up at the ceiling as he listened to the strange man speak.

"But life's not all bad."

"Oh?"

"Well, I'm not the only angel in your life, am I?" the man said pointedly. "Though he's more the fallen type, if you get my meaning. Looks innocent enough, but what lurks behind those beautiful eyes of his? I'm sure only you can unlock that secret."

"Maybe," Roy agreed. He let his eyes droop shut. "He doesn't deserve me. I feel...twisted. Sick in the head. I can't stop thinking about him." Even at that moment, his eyes were assaulted by a flurry of images; that rare smile, that fair soft hair, so touchable and sweet and broken. He was addicted to more than alcohol. He was addicted to the feel of Edward's skin, the taste of his lips.

"No," the man responded, tone oddly cheerful. "He doesn't. But will you let that stop you? You haven't before."

"He's too young," Roy said firmly. "And not exactly straight as a nail, but he's - I went too far. I've gone way too far. It was so simple at first, but then it just spun out of control and I lost it." He stopped; regret causing his throat to close up again. He couldn't continue the sentence; didn't want to admit his wrongdoings. It seemed that his whole life consisted of his numerous mistakes, and he didn't care to share it with a complete stranger.

"Listen to yourself, Mustang. You're beating yourself up. Sure, you've done wrong, maybe pushed him a little harder than he was comfortable with. So make the choice for him. Come on, you've followed orders all your life. Killed innocent people as a direct result of those orders. Edward's still impressionable, still so easy to control."

"What do you mean?"

"He is a self indulgent, self pitying little fuck who can't possibly form the vaguest picture of your inner anguish. And think. When you touch him, he wants it, oh God he wants it, but he would so much rather play the victim. He thinks about you, too."

"You're wrong." Roy's mouth felt dry all of a sudden. He couldn't fool himself into believing that, however tempting the thought. If he could only break the boy further, bend him to his will. He would be so perfectly obedient. But that wouldn't make it right. Just easier.

"I'm not finished." The man interrupted. "He is the selfish one, the sinful one. He crossed the line with his transmutation. He ripped his own life apart. He deserves all the punishment he can get. But you…_you_ on the other hand…you never had a choice. You went to war with the greatest of intentions at heart. And look at what you've sacrificed for it."

Roy looked down, biting his lip. He _had_ sacrificed a lot. He had made friends in the military, friends that had been tortured and killed. He still had memories, fresh as the day he first collected them. And they made him writhe in his sleep just as effectively.

What had Edward ever done? Sucked his brother into the delusion that they could bring their mother back? Trapped Alphonse in a damned shell of a body for three years, while he walked free, almost perfect?

"Yes, Colonel. You agree with me, don't you? Why shouldn't he love you back? The little whore should be throwing himself at you, begging for a little retribution."

"He should." Roy muttered, voice rising. "He should. So that's how I'll save myself? By making him mine?" He fingered the smooth, cold rim of the liquor bottle, his haggard eyes staring back at him.

"Right." The man was cheerful again, like he was a psychologist who had just reached a breakthrough with his patient. "This is coming from a friend, Mustang. We are friends now, correct? No, perhaps not. But even so, I think I've managed to help you solve a dilemma tonight. It'll be a long, arduous task, but your guardian angel will help you along the way."

"What should I call you?" Roy asked suddenly. It was a stupid question, even more stupid than the fact that he had just taken a stranger's absurd advice to heart. But the thought had been pestering him, and he wanted to know. Thinking of him as simply an angel didn't agree with any rational thought he had left.

"Call me Jacob. John. No, no...Charlie. Call me Charlie."

"Charlie? I can work with that."

"I've always liked it."

Roy stood up awkwardly, stumbling even without much movement. He switched the phone to his other hand, and then picked up the empty plastic vodka bottle. "Charlie," he said after a moment. "I need a favor."

"Yes?"

"Do you know where I can find something stronger?" He laughed. "I'm kind of tired." He looked determinedly at the window, imagining Edward out there somewhere, sleeping and unaware and vulnerable. He wouldn't be alone for long.

There was a pause. Then, "Yes, Mustang. I know just the guy for you."

Roy sighed in fatigued relief, wondering just how fucked up he must be to be taking advice from a strange man on an anonymous military telephone.

The man gave him instructions, and he scribbled them down on a piece of loose paper on the desk, nodding. He pocketed it, Charlie's last words being, "Don't be afraid to hurt him. Fuck him into the ground. Bleeding cleanses the soul."


	4. Take

The streets of Central were empty at this time of night; there were no cars on the road, no people on the sidewalk. The music was turned up high on the radio, hard metal tunes that seemed to suit the mood well. Roy attempted to drive slowly, though the feat was better said than done. Every nerve had the feeling of being on fire, endorphins coming like shock waves. It scarcely bothered him that he was driving far above the speed limit, a raging ninety-eight miles an hour that made everything distorted and dark.

Glancing at the clock and finding that it was well past midnight, he narrowed his eyes to vicious slits, and stepped down hard on the gas pedal. The vehicle roared, the engine groaning, slick puddles splashing on the pavement. He gripped the wheel tightly, wishing that he smoked so he could calm down a little. His heart was beating so fast he felt it might finally give out and leave him a dead man.

Thank God for Charlie. The man was absolutely right, right about everything. Their last conversation felt like holy sacrament; Charlie was a man of God, a saint, an angel with a voice. Perhaps that was stretching it, but at this point Roy didn't mind a bit of hyperbole to keep his foot on the gas pedal. Charlie had, after all, convinced him in so few words (and a bit of chemical persuasion) that he shouldn't fight his instincts anymore.

He would save himself, and save Edward; the both of them were sinners, murderers, demons of spitting hellfire that deserved each other in a dark sense of destiny. And if the boy wouldn't accept his role, his _destiny_, his part as Roy's possession, then the man would simply have to force him to see reason. He wasn't planning on hurting the kid. Just talking to him, bargaining, offering him the world in exchange for carnal reciprocals.

He glanced at the clock again with mad, dark eyes, wishing that he could pick up just a bit more speed. His car wasn't meant to drive so fast, so rapidly, no not at all. He was so close, so dangerously close to skidding or hydroplaning that he grinned.

It was just a little needle, just a little injection. Tiny amount, tiny amount. It hadn't even been as expensive as he might have expected. Not that he was complaining, but he knew well enough that cheap drugs were often laced with other supplements. Ah, screw it. Did it even matter? After all that he'd done, after what he was going to do - to hell with safety.

After all, he could afford it, and would always be able to afford it, so long as he never got caught.

The radio screamed with music, rocking his soul and reminding him of his own fevered need. He thought about the lesser establishments in Central, hookers and dark masks and the beat of sex and drugs and crime. Red lights, sweet heady smells, voices and vibrancy and the feeling of a strange lover's tongue in his mouth. He could forgo his dangerous mission and take a dive in the underground, the filth of the city.

But every time he thought of those tainted women, the epitomes of sex, he couldn't stop himself from envisioning the act; and in his visions, the woman with all of her curves and gasping and soft touches, would always turn into...

His breath caught in his throat, the music seeming to mute itself. He felt lightheaded all of a sudden, wanting Ed, and all of him. Image after image of the young, hot body, soft and salty sweet skin a playground for touching and tasting and feeling. Being inside of him, finding the special darkness of his core, listening to him scream and moan and beg him not to stop, writhing beneath him.

He thought about pulling over to the side of the road, to take his quivering arousal and imagine in the silence that it was Edward touching him that way. The soft, small mouth around his cock, his loose golden hair spilling about his shoulders and tickling the man's spread legs, every pretty sound from his throat sending a shiver of vibration down his length.

Roy made a short gasp, eyes swimming with tears at the realization that it was just an illusion; but God, if the dream could feel so damn good, make his pulse quicken and his erection begin to stiffen in his jeans, then he wondered if Ed would ever be compliant enough to let him have the real thing.

It would never be enough, would never come close to that.

* * *

Roy was eternally grateful that Edward never locked his doors. It was almost as if the boy were waiting for Alphonse's ghost to show up from across the train tracks; as if Edward expected Alphonse to come back from the dead. Roy didn't blame him. He, too, kept his windows unbolted in the hopes that Hughes would come tapping on the panes.

He often imagined what Hughes' corpse would look like; black on black on black, little white wriggling shapes devouring the man's burned flesh.

Only at night, hidden under the cloak of darkness, could Roy look Fullmetal straight in the face, and have faith that the boy could not look at him back, could not haunt him with a golden stare that paralyzed his very heartbeat. Edward's room was small, and occupied by two beds. Alphonse's was crisp and unmade, as if the child had simply wandered off to the bathroom down the hall and not returned yet. The lingering scent of medicine and cough syrup was overbearing.

If Alphonse were alive, Roy would never dare enter the Elric's home so late, and definitely wouldn't crouch at the elder's bed, his chin resting on the mattress and his fingers running through the boy's golden hair. He would never kiss him, touch him, or himself, or fight a burning desire to crawl under the blankets or fuck the kid's unconscious mouth.

He let his eyes roll up toward the white ceiling painted with moonlight, warm waves of pleasure and intimacy spreading throughout his body. He was careful; very careful, always withdrawing if Ed so much as whimpered in protest of the dark intentions his Colonel commanded.

Then he would return to the fray, stroking himself madly, feeling the tentative early wetness of his own sin, watching Edward's sweet lips as they drew breath. They shared the same oxygen, the same fucking air, and that set Roy off like nothing could. He bit down on his lower lip, carefully forcing down the moan that glided there; then he looked back at the teen, at the virgin body underneath the virgin white sheet, and felt tears grow in his eyes.

Tears of revulsion, tears of guilt, tears of heady euphoria.

He panted in Edward's ear, kissing it gently. "You're such a good boy...beautiful like this." And he was. In a dream-state (probably induced by chemicals, cold medicines - whatever the fuck Edward kept in his pantry these days) he looked like some kind of angel; tangled blond hair that folded around his head in an erotic picture, his small face expressionless and almost at peace.

It was only now, in the silence of midnight, that Roy realized just how attractive the child was. Not that he'd ever really looked, and certainly not in so picturesque a setting. Desperation and attraction were two very different things.

One day, he would love to see firsthand what Edward would look like when caught in the hot trembling of intimacy. If his eyes would brighten, or darken; if he would scream and writhe and pant breathy moans on his lover's lips. If Edward would ever mature into having any sexual interest at all. So far, the older man's advances had come to nothing, and the Rockbell girl had been indiscreetly looking at him for years.

Roy closed his eyes. He could imagine that it was Edward stroking him, hard, fast. He could imagine a flirtatious smirk, perhaps, the teen's naked body a temptation in itself in firelight. Just bodily contact would suffice. He never asked himself _why _he was so driven mad with lust, why the object of his desire was fourteen years his junior, underage as it was, or perhaps asked himself all of these things but ignored them.

He wanted to touch Edward, really touch him. God, he wanted to. Had wanted to for years; had entertained the idea of fucking Edward Elric since the teen showed up in Central almost four years ago. But he'd felt such terror, then, afraid of his own desires. It wasn't because of his youth, he'd told himself. The kid was different. A living metaphor of life and fire and heat and desire; hell, it was like God had practically offered him up. Take him, he's yours.

He froze, a hot fever spreading beneath his skin. Edward twitched in his sleep, and golden eyes opened lazily, the lids fluttering in confusion. Roy's stomach clenched as the teen whimpered again, and felt a tug of intense lust, listening that sweet sound in his ear. He brushed a lock of hair from the boy's forehead, and dim eyes locked on his, blurry and disoriented.

Roy wasn't sure what was happening. A familiar, terrifying buzz filled his head, and before he could stop himself he thrust his hand against the teen's mouth, muffling the harsh scream that followed. He acted quickly, ignoring Edward's wide, shocked eyes. Roy clambered on top of the teen, shrugging out of his jacket before pinning Ed's wrists above his head with one hand. The other stayed on the kid's mouth.

"I'm not going to hurt you-"

Roy wasn't sure if the statement was bullshit or not, but Edward thought it was, and proceeded to scream against his hand, struggling madly and kicking with all of the force he could muster. Ed stopped only for a brief instant, breathing hard, when faced with the sick revelation that he could feel Roy's erection pressed wantonly against him.

Must have been nightmare fuel.

Roy didn't blame him. He detected a few words, mostly curses, and the occasional cry of frustration. "I know it's late," Roy said to him. He heard a quiet whimper catch in the teen's throat, his bright amber eyes widening in the fear of whatever perversion drove the man to him. He tried to move his hands, to kick, but Roy tightened the grip on his wrists, bone and carpal.

"You know," Roy whispered, "It gets to be too much. You've got to commit some taboos. Your mother was worth trying it for; I think you're worth it, too. If you'll let me have you."

Roy let go of the kid's mouth long enough to kiss him, hard and longing, intoxicated. Edward stayed very still, his tongue lax and his lips parting vaguely as if to avoid inevitable struggle. The poor kid, Roy thought as he sifted his fingers through warm golden hair. Thought it was just another transaction, another little kiss behind the door. It was much more than that; he could feel it.

"Do you have any idea what I want to do to you?" Roy asked, pressing his lips to the teen's hair. He could taste, smell the sweet scent of innocence and fearful heat. "Now that I have you all alone."

"Get the fuck _off._"

Roy chuckled. He gently thrust against the boy's body with a small moan, unable to stop himself from the autonomous action; he couldn't see anything but stars and the blond beneath him. He took a deep breath, struggling to speak as sweat marked his brow, "Bet you're used to saying that. Are you going to make me?"

"Mustang, please," Ed murmured, tearful sobs catching in his throat. His body was shaking, inside and out; it was like those first few moments before vomiting, where everything was hot and sickly and nauseous. The body wanted to rid itself of disease, of illness, but it hurt too damn much. Again he tried to loosen the grip on his wrists, but nothing happened in his favor.

This was wrong. When he'd first opened his eyes he'd thought that it was just a dream. There were so many nightmares hidden in the stocks of his memory, scenarios that played out horrifically. Blood and corpses and burning fields and homes and dark shapes that lingered too close to his flesh for comfort, vampires after the only drop of purity he could still claim as his; maybe Mustang would take that, too.

He didn't want to let him, but he felt bound, laid out like some kind of sacrifice. Somehow, after all that they'd been through, he was obliged to sit still and trust the man to fuck him gently. He tried to filter his thoughts appropriately, tell himself that it wasn't true, that the cold medicine and the drugs in his system were making him weak and frail, those characteristics that the man _wanted _so he could take more easily.

"Don't scream."

At first Edward seriously considered the offer. He'd just stay quiet and let the man touch him as much as he wanted. Maybe if he closed his eyes it wouldn't be true.

But all of that consideration went to hell when he heard the formidable sound of zipper, barely audible. His mind made the connection; Roy was on substances, wasn't thinking clearly, and now he wanted something more than what Ed could give. "No, no, no!" he shrieked, resuming the struggle, crying without ever putting thought into doing it.

"Help me take off your clothes."

Edward shut his eyes, shaking his head rapidly.

"I could do it for you..."

Roy smirked into the boy's throat, tasting his pulse, such pretty life. He thrust his tongue in the kid's mouth. Edward made small, quiet sounds of discontent, flinching away from teeth and into the pillow; the cotton hid the scent of alcohol and sweat. Displacement wasn't easy. It was a helpless situation, and Ed wasn't sure a little refusal would convince the man to back away. Not this time.

"Where's all that strength they love you for? Fullmetal." Roy broke the elastic of the boy's hair tie, and pulled it cleanly from soft gold strands. He shivered, the scent of rain and soap and a touch of cinnamon leaving its traces in the air. His body shook, his fingers roaming slowly over angular cheekbones, blinking eyes with lashes that tickled his palm. "God, you're fucking beautiful."

"Please," Ed said, his voice weak. "I promise I'll forget. I won't remember."

Roy hesitated, those words carving a sliver in his memory, foggy days of long ago in the sun-bleached halls of Central Command, or the dark nights of sand between sheets. I promise I'll forget. Maybe they had already done this, but had forced themselves to forget it, pretend it was a nightmare. No. Roy had never felt him this close before, would have remembered the feel of their bodies forced into the other.

Roy ran his thumb hard along the blond's jaw. Watery eyes the distinct shade of honey stared back at him, framed by long, dark lashes beneath the mussed gold locks of his hair; Roy could see him take pains to draw breath, his chest rising and falling slightly, imperceptibly. Without thinking, without feeling, he captured either side of the blond's head in a tight hold and forced their lips together. Ed flinched, a small scream rising in his throat, and clenched his teeth.

Roy let his eyes flicker closed, tongue slipping between the boy's soft lips, only to find the teen's resistance preventing entrance. Well, that just wouldn't do at all. He bit down hard on Ed's lower lip, tasting a small amount of copper red, before the teen gave a choked sob and allowed him to fill his small, wet mouth with his tongue.

He found his body acting of its own accord. Friction sent small shocks of pleasure all throughout his body, and he gave a low throaty whimper. Tongue swathing around the inside of the teen's mouth, he let go of Ed's head and slid his hands beneath the white cotton, purity giving way to the heat of seclusion.

Hard, flat stomach, tight with fear, muscles clenching against the rough palm of his hand. Smoother skin as he went lower, lower, until he was skirting the private edges of the boy's sex, and Edward protested undecipherable nonsense into Roy's mouth, his legs snapping tightly together. Oh, no. No one had done anything to him yet; that was good.

He loved Edward with all his heart and soul and body; his intelligence, his beauty, his heat, his shattered, divided personality and stolen childhood. But there was a problem with wanting someone so forbidden, so taboo to touch or hold. They usually wanted nothing more but to sink into themselves, afraid to let go and give in to need. Human need. Roy felt like a teacher, like a liberator, or so he tried to tell himself.

It was his twisted philosophy that had driven him here. And to think it had only taken some prodding from his Guardian Angel to finally come to the obvious conclusion.

"I've been so good to you, Fullmetal," he whispered, drawing back and brushing a sweat-matted lock of hair from the boy's forehead. Edward trembled weakly, crystalline tears blending in with frightened perspiration. "_So good_...protecting you, keeping you safe. So you fuck around with those men that stare at you, those sick, depraved bastards that see you and want to take you from me?" The teen started softly crying, and the sound both broke Roy's heart and made his erection quiver.

"I already told you, that's all in your fucking head!"

Roy hit him across the face, seething with a temperamental justification. He snatched up the blond's jaw, watching him closely, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably as Ed sobbed harder. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was only being reminded of how young his prey was. "I've see the way they all stare at you. And you tell me there's nothing going on?"

He hit him again, the teen's head knocking to the side and his hair following like a frayed, angelic curtain. Ed froze at the immediate impact, and his lip split, a hot stream of blood trailing into his mouth. Roy could barely make out the crimson in the darkness, but wondered in his agitation just what it would taste like.

"You're insane," Ed said, regaining some of his composure at the sharp pain. He tried willing himself to gather strength, to knock the fucker's teeth out for all that he'd done to him, for molesting him for years and hitting him and for calling him worthless and for coming here _now, _right when he was most vulnerable, and trying to seal the deal. But he couldn't. His fist remained dormant and useless at his side.

Roy claimed his lips again, his shaking fingers traveling to his own zipper. Ed's eyes went wide when he heard the sound, and he panicked, teeth sinking into Roy's tongue and filling his mouth with ever more blood. Roy smacked him hard without so much as a pained cry, and then worked to fully remove his own clothing. The cold air made his erection painfully more sensitive, but he didn't care anymore. "You've hurt me too many times," he said softly, kissing up towards his ear and nibbling gently, "I think it's time I got a little something back."

"What did you take?" Ed asked with some difficulty, voice cracked. He'd been trying to pretend that he was dreaming, but dreams never involved actual pain. This was different. Mustang was really there, and Mustang really wanted to hurt him this time. "You're high. You have to be. You wouldn't do this to me." Roy looked up and saw that his eyes were squeezed shut, clear salt streaming from the edges.

"Makes no difference to you. Just relax," Roy soothed him, pulling at the teen's clothes and slowly, meticulously, exposing him to the cold. Every time some new part of him was exposed, nearly paper white in the moonlight, Roy couldn't help but touch him, run his hands over him until he was satisfied.

He had never seen him unclothed before, not like this; communal showers during the war hardly counted, because it wasn't as easy to stare. He had lost muscle through inactivity, but he still looked damn good, his figure almost feminine and with a slight curve.

He nodded approvingly, knowing that the chill atmosphere was affecting Edward just as badly. The boy had curled onto his side, ignoring the caresses and words spoken as though he were in another world.

"Please...please don't do this..."

Pain and pleasure intertwined would make it oh so beautifully clear where he was treading. Edward would know. Edward would know that punishment and reward came hand in hand. The endorphins clogged every rational thought; his muscles pulsed beneath his skin, tensing and relaxing in time to his heady breathing. He knew that if he wanted to, he could beat the living shit out of the kid and still -

No. No, the goal wasn't to hurt him.

The room was dark, the only source of light coming from a dreamlike strain of moon on the wall in the shape of the windowpanes. The bedding was soft under Roy's hands, under Ed's body, and the teen was staring off at the wall with his hair strewn about his forehead, eyes unable to be read or focused on. It was like he had already resigned himself into being taken, and Roy didn't want that.

"Look at me," he commanded, rough hand clasping the boy's forearm. He jerked the body half over, and with his other hand, softly parted the teen's legs. Ed closed his eyes tightly, the shimmer of tears leaving trails down his darkened face.

"I just want to look at you when I fuck you, that's all," Roy said, watching Ed's unchanging, terrified expression. His grip on the boy's arm tightened, _hard, _without any conscious thought put into the action. "I've been thinking about you for so long." He kissed him possessively, and then draped his own body across the smaller frame.

Ed cried out, arching into Roy's muscled chest, as the man's fingers entered him roughly. He sobbed into the deepening kiss, every second seeming to come at smaller frequencies. He hated the weight, the feeling of being trapped and unable to move or breathe. That overwhelming sense of wrong came back; as if the both of them together were to blame for what the older man was doing.

Unwillingly, his hips jerked, and a dry cry escaped him and into Roy's greedy mouth. Dull heat flowed through his body, Roy's fingers jabbing his prostate with a mixture of confused pain and pleasure, his mind fogging up in a cloud of hormones. He wanted to cry, but some small part of him wouldn't let him; crying would be ultimate defeat. He'd cry later, when Roy wasn't around to see it. For the time being, he'd just try to shrink, become invisible.

"You make such pretty sounds," Roy said with a touch of mockery, twisting his fingers inside of the boy and creating just a little more space. He was so, so tight; he shuddered, and suddenly decided he couldn't wait, he had to be inside of him _now, _he had to touch him now. With a smirk, he pressed his erection into the inside of the boy's thigh, ignoring the way Ed's eyes stared up at the ceiling as he panted and tried to imagine he was somewhere else.

Roy removed his fingers, watching as relief spread in a slight shiver throughout Ed's body, before he took hold of the teen's hips. Edward was trembling, the fear and adrenaline in his system not helping to decrease his frantic and unwilling arousal. He whispered something, like faint pleading, a final tear making its mark down his face. Roy shifted a bit, the boy's legs wrapping around his waist, so cool and warm at the same time.

"You won't tell anyone, will you?"

Edward shook his head, slowly at first, and then with a resolute jerk. "Fuck you, you fucking bastard-"

Roy entered him, fully, fast, hard, completely and almost silently, and for a minute time seemed to stand still; he didn't hear the pained scream of protest that tore past Ed's lips before it died into sobbing and begging, didn't understand where he was. It felt so fucking good. He forgot to feel guilt, forgot to feel shame. He took a breath, Edward all around him, his stressed muscles sending earth shattering spasms all throughout his core.

The tight feeling was almost unbearable, like someone was squeezing his cock with their hand. But the thought of it being Edward changed everything; the pain was like heaven.

Edward didn't think, in all of his darkest nightmares, that it would hurt so badly. He thought he could hear the tear of flesh, could feel the blood like hot water running down his legs, into the fiber of the mattress, down his back until it found shelter in his hair. "Colonel...p-please...please don't-" He screamed, harder than he had in his life, back arching into the carpet, fingers tightening into themselves and nails drawing blood, as Roy began to move, changing and going in and out of him. Steadily. "Someone help-" 

Roy kept a steady pace, ignoring the screams. He panted and moaned a bit, growing so ticklishly exhausted, so exhilarated by pleasure, that he could barely keep going. For some reason, Ed's screaming only aided him further, pushing him ever closer to climaxing. He wanted to shush him, tell him it would start to feel good real soon, but he wasn't able to draw breath enough to breathe, let alone soothe the crying and writhing boy beneath him. No one would hear, and if they did, they wouldn't care.

Edward gave a small yelp, a sound coming from his psyche, one he couldn't control, one he couldn't detain. All of a sudden there was a hot, sweet, lovely sensation crawling inside of him and across his skin. It was like cold fire, and it knocked the fuck out of any and all thoughts screaming in his head; Roy was stroking him gently, and the dark, sweet spot deep within him pulsed frantically with sensation. He tried, and failed, not to lose his head. Somewhere along the way, his hips bucked forward, and he moaned without a choice, the hot release of seed coming forth before he could feel disgusted with himself.

Soon after, he felt the dull throbbing of his consciousness fade away, until he fell against the pillow and closed his eyes, his last memory being of how sickly sour the air smelt. He needed to buy air freshener. Alphonse needn't smell sex when he came home.

* * *

Roy came inside of the boy's unconscious, still-trembling body, and then pulled out, panting raggedly and collapsing on the barely breathing form. The silence of afterglow had always bothered him. The air always begged for nothing, and his previous lovers always fell asleep on his shoulder or chest, pinning him in place for the night. This was a different situation.

He pulled the teen close to him, wrapping arms around his small body, and thrust his tongue in the lethargic mouth without a care in the world. The boy had a fine stain of tears all across his face, and Roy lapped them up with a sick hunger, the salt a treat for his tongue.

He brushed a lock of damp hair from his forehead. Edward shook in fear and shock, his eyes closed but twitching madly behind the lids. Small, whimpering noises vibrated in his throat, and Roy kissed his neck softly, leaving a trail down toward his collarbone. The euphoria of cumming was starting to ebb away, a memory now, and yet Roy didn't feel it had been any less worth it.

He'd finally done it. Edward was _his. _

The teen stirred fitfully, and then a sob broke forth from his lips, though he did not open his eyes. Roy frowned at the quiet, the nightmare, and very gently parted the boy's legs again. Edward thrashed weakly, crying a bit harder, "Please d-don't-"

"I'm not going to hurt you," Roy muttered, catching himself off guard. Hurt. He surveyed the damage done, a mixture of semen and crusting blood and bruises of every color and torn flesh, and felt a little more guilty than he had earlier. There was nothing he could do about it, though. Hospital was out of the question; he'd be thrown in prison by the end of the night. "Get up and in the shower."

Edward buried his head in the pillow, blood seeping from his hair against the fabric. "I can't move."

"Well, that's a real fucking shame. Get up, you little bitch." He narrowed his eyes to black slits, eyes roaming up and down over the boy's body. Edward had curled on his side, breathing irregularly and huddling into himself for warmth. He looked - hurt, but strangely beautiful, glowing like a fallen angel in the moonlight.

"Fine. When you feel better, get the fuck in there and you scrub yourself down, in and out. I don't need anyone finding me on you." He turned on his heel, deciding to leave the sight before he decided to tempt himself or guilt himself again. "And you'd better not be at work tomorrow; I'll make something up, but if you show up, I will fucking strangle you. Is that understood?"

"Just go the fuck away," Ed moaned into his pillow, slamming it over his ear.

"Planning on it. Clean yourself up, you look like shit."


	5. Fight

_I'm not afraid to dream, to sleep, sleep forever._  
_I don't need to touch the sky._  
_I just want to feel that high,_  
_And you refuse to lift me._

_Guess it wasn't real after all._  
_Guess it wasn't real all along._

_If I fall and all is lost,_  
_It's where I belong._

_-Cloud Nine, Evanescence_

_

* * *

_

The bed was molded to the shape of his body, and he allowed himself to sink in, warm and comfortable in a thick swathe of dull purple feather down. He gazed upward at the ceiling, a faint light coming from the window. Morning at last, though he was peculiarly reluctant to get out of bed.

He had skipped the bar on the way home, deciding that he needed his sobriety to maintain a clear head and avoid a hangover, but now he was regretting that particular decision. Perhaps the alcohol would have made him sleepy enough to get a few moments' rest before he was required at headquarters, though in all honesty playing hooky was a more tempting alternative.

The drugs had long ago worn off, leaving him in the pit of depression common after a high. The cold chill of winter had seeped into his muscles overnight, leaving him weak and clumsy. Logically, that was another reason to avoid drink's intoxication; if he dulled his senses any more, he might have seriously contemplated suicide.

Not that the gun stashed in the glove compartment of his car, hard and smooth and dark, wasn't already calling him. He had sinned, and now the devil wanted his flesh.

He threw his blankets off with a groan, cursing the sun for rising as though everything was perfectly normal. He sat on the edge of the bed, adjusting his eyes to the brightening light. He yawned, standing and heading toward the bathroom across the hall. He pulled off his shirt, ignoring the black blood that dotted the hem, and lightly examined his appearance in the mirror.

Finely sculpted muscles stood out through pale skin as though he was made of marble; his body was, although quite often escaping his own knowledge, perfect. But there was still that dead look in his eyes, dark circles growing beneath that reflected the blackness of his own soul. He would never admit it, but he was both the haunter and the haunted. The shadow of a ghoul that hid nightmares and inflicted them upon those who deserved it.

They deserved it.

He pulled off the rest of his clothes, cold air chilling his bones. It was too early, or too late; he couldn't tell anymore. He never slept.

He turned the knob in the shower, a jet of icy water surging from the nozzle. He closed his eyes, paying scant, meditative attention to the sound of water hitting the bathtub floor; it made him perk up a bit. He turned the knob until it could go no further, craving the heat he constantly desired, even in his dreams.

_Burn me. I'm the demon. _

He stepped in, leaning against the shower wall, beckoning toward the tendrils of blistering water and slowly becoming accustomed to their hot force. He grew drowsy, and that only made him more frustrated, because he found it extremely unfair to want to sleep in the day and not in the night. Like a vampire. Sucking life, blood, innocence, Christ - hell.

He fought back a bitter laugh. Last night's memories were convoluted and diluted, both painful and wonderful. So good. So right. So warm. And at the same time, so undeniably wrong; but once he had started, he hadn't stopped. His pulse had quickened. Every time he had heard Edward scream, every time he had felt him shaking underneath him, around him, he couldn't prevent the reality becoming illusion. It was all just pretend.

Too good to be the truth, too terrible to reveal. Panic fluttered like a moth in his chest, fighting to escape. The evidence could be found in many places. The blood on the sheets, the blood inside of Edward. But even so, he didn't want to believe he was capable of such a thing. Believing it would mean he had committed a felony; one of the worst besides murder. He imagined his coworkers would shoot him point-blank if they ever discovered he had sexually assaulted their youngest.

Forced that goddamn beautiful blond beneath him. He had dreamed about it for a long while, too long, so now that the act itself had been brought to fruition, he found it wasn't as epiphanic as he would have liked. There were no phone calls, no words, no guilty strings pulling at his conscience. He felt numb. Evoked the memories for the pleasure of desire, but looked on himself like a hero, not a criminal.

He stared down at the drain, watching as the water swirled into it, disappearing. With every suck on the drain, empty guilt ate away at his conscience. He had done it. He had raped Edward. And he felt absolutely no regrets. Invisible tethers had been cut away during the struggle; the blood had cleansed his body, made him felt more free, more pure, than before sex itself had permeated their existences.

With every thrust his mind had screamed: _Love me, love me, love me._ Just love me, because no one else does, and no one ever will.

He trusted the boy not to tell anyone that mattered. Trusted Edward to disinfect himself and the bedroom where the _incident _had taken place; it was only to be expected. This wasn't the first time they'd touched. The first time it had gone far enough to hurt, yes, and that was where Roy's main concern lied. Not for the boy, certainly, but for what would happen to the both of them physically if anyone were to find out. Well. _  
_

He shut the water off, bristling with conflicted emotion, and then stood for a long while, naked and shivering in the pale light filtering through the window. If worst came to worst, he would use that gun after all. Perhaps take the sultry little blond with him to make a more potent statement. More blood, more blood, and finally no blood at all.

It was very quiet. Although silence, he noted sadly, often implied he was alone.

* * *

Ed woke with a start, throwing his sheets to the floor; he had felt them, wet as water and dragging him deep into Hades.

He backed away from the white linen until he reached the other bed occupying the room, examining the floor with his hand over his mouth, horrified at the little flickers of nightmares reflected in his golden eyes. He forced himself to breathe nice and slow, sunk to the ground, eyes closing as he came to realize that it had only been his own sweat and tears soaking the blankets. That was all.

He started to cry, remembering in his dull waking state the nightmare that had plagued him, as it had hundreds of times before. Red clouded his vision and screams tore at his ears, faint echoes of the things he had seen and done. In his dream, he had looked down at his hands; they had been covered in someone's blood, and the carnage had melted away into Alphonse, dead on the ground, a sheet pulled over his eyes. A sarcastic voice in the elder brother's ear, trying to calm him while invading his mouth with a slippery, wet tongue.

He curled into himself, slowly succumbing to silence, soft sobs coming from between his shivering teeth. He was becoming weak again. His mother would frown at the weakness; tell him to stand up, that he was old enough to know better than to cry over spilled milk or lost innocence.

The morning sunrise took his eyes with a bruising pain. He felt completely out of touch with the material world: looked on it with dark lenses. He was a foreign spirit invading a body that didn't belong to him. Every cell in his body burned with the phantom touch of Roy Mustang; the man that had held him down less than a few hours before. Overstepped every boundary. Shattered every fragment of trust. _Left _as if nothing had transpired.

Dark visions of memory traced his mind, touching his spirit roughly. Hot, sticky tears traced his face, dribbling down into the loose, white t-shirt he had thrown on after the rape. Every action on his part had been one of practicality: covered in blood, so he took a long shower, ignoring the mix of semen and blood that ran down the shower drain. Threw his bloody bedsheets in the wastebasket. Sprayed the mattress with Lysol.

He forced himself to forget. Had to force himself to forget, or else he would shatter into himself like fragile glass. Every step burned, not just physically but mentally. At any moment, Roy would come back, push him back down on the bed, come inside of him again, kiss and moan and touch and take. Now that the line had been crossed (that final barrier between parental and sexual) it would expectantly be crossed again. The colonel would never stop wanting him.

Roy Mustang was a man whose mind worked in two steps. First: what did he desire? Second: how could he get it? For the man never stopped desiring whatever it was he wanted in the first place. People were objects, things he could either play with, or bind himself to like a small boat to a rock on turbulent waters.

And Edward knew that he wouldn't ever resist him. It would be entirely pointless. He'd seen and done much worse things than _sex_. It was violence under the guise of affection, though; perhaps that's what made him feel so marred, so fragile, so completely ruined. Whatever the war hadn't done to him, Mustang did.

He laid his head down on the floor, the cool surface heaven for his feverish skin. The world was completely deaf and blind to his inner turmoil, and he actually liked that. He would be the observer; he preferred people to go about their business because he didn't want to bother them. Being alone and in the dark made him appreciate the little things in life, anyway. Early morning crickets chirping, the train in the distance.

He remembered Mustang's words. A warning not to come back to work for awhile. From that, Edward understood that the man was well aware what would happen to the both of them if anyone were to find out about their "relations", no matter the consensual circumstances. But that was fine. He'd thrown up three times already, and the sun was blistering his migraine to fierce proportions.

Still.

He picked his head off the ground, the salt in his tears starting to chafe his sensitive skin. What had been done to him was like an infection in his body: sin that would never go away. He was frightened. Scared of what Mustang would do next; scared of who he had become, if anything.

He could call Hawkeye. Jean. Hell, even Breda or Falman. Sob on the phone and relive that moment, over and over again. Roy hurt me, please help. But they wouldn't believe him; wouldn't care. Roy was a _good influence _on him. Kept his head on straight. Gave him structure and rules to follow. Saved his life. Would never molest him or hit him when no one was looking.

_"He loves you, Edward." _

Certainly. With every fucking inch of his dick. _  
_

* * *

Edward kept his eyes glued to the paperwork in front of him, adamantly refusing to glance up in Mustang's direction. The place smelled like paper; a good change of pace, as he'd been growing tired of the scent of his own apartment. He would keep his cool today. He wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction of knowing that yes, he'd been hurt, very badly, and internally shuddered any time they were forced to make contact.

Roy's behavior indicated the feeling was mutual. All day, the man had kept his head down, not saying a word and sending instructions to him via Riza Hawkeye. Edward wanted to be angry at this; angry that the man had violently taken him, forced screams from his throat and blood from his veins, and now had the audacity to act as if it was a spat or small argument. His hands shook, the paper in his hands crinkling.

He had deliberately disobeyed the orders to stay home. He wasn't limping too badly; occasionally he would start bleeding again, but kept wiping the blood away and ignored the pain as he would any injury. If someone asked why he winced every few steps, he told them he'd sprained his ankle. It satisfied them.

Asking questions in the Amestrian State Military typically did not bode well for people.

He jumped, someone's breath hot on his neck. He took an irritated breath when he realized it was only Lieutenant Havoc, and while he was a man Edward had taken to trusting him a little more than he probably should have. Although he was under the impression that Jean would never do anything to intentionally hurt him, he also knew that Jean was obnoxiously protective and interrogative. He was channeling Maes Hughes.

"Jesus Christ, don't sneak up on me like that. What part of war vet don't you understand?" Ed snapped irritably, all of his focus and mental capacity on Mustang. They couldn't ignore each other forever; he certainly wasn't going to tell anyone and he knew that Roy wasn't one to resist his feelings for long. The only question was when the desire would become too much.

"On the rag again, Fullmetal?" Havoc smirked, pressing his palms flat on Edward's desk as if they belonged there. Ed could smell the smoky scent of old cigarettes and cheap cologne.

"I'm getting really sick of all of you calling me a girl. I'm perfectly masculine."

"Of course you are. And you also happen to bleed like a bitch once or twice a month," Havoc muttered, leaning over Ed's shoulder, glancing at the photographs spread on the polished wood. He whistled low. "Gross. I didn't know people had that much blood in them."

"Yeah," Ed said as though it was a common subject in pictures. "It's murder number five. Don't smudge your fingerprints on them. The film's delicate, and I don't need to make this case any more difficult than it already is."

"You'd think that with you being a genius and all, the bastard would be in jail by now."

"The guy doesn't exactly have a method to his madness."

"Apparently not," Havoc said, disguising his nausea with a nervous laugh. He slowly sobered into seriousness, biting down on his lower lip. He didn't like the kid hanging around that kind of investigation, but knew it would be foolish to press the subject. This was his brother they were talking about. If anyone was worth more turmoil, it was Al. "If you need help, I might be able to hang out in the Investigations Department with you. Make you coffee. Try not to throw up all over the files."

"No thanks," Ed responded monotonously. "It's nothing against you, but I work better on my own. Besides, if I screw this up somehow, I don't want you taking the heat for it."

He might have found the offer amusing or heartfelt at one point, but today was different. He was not in the mood for a Hallmark moment. Rape gave him an excuse to act cranky. He lowered his gaze, completely caught up in the file spread before him. He didn't notice Jean's blue eyes turn a little downward in hurt.

He repeated the numbers and statistics in his head, over and over, and tried to remember all the information about the victims. Perceived knife measurements. Heights. Weights. Times of death. Enough little pieces to form grisly imagery in the mind of a detective; but there were plenty of crazies in Central City. Besides a few physical features and their ages, the victims were not connected.

Havoc nodded grimly. "I just want to talk to you in private some time, that's all. Nothing more than that." He looked over at Roy; the man had his head folded in his hands, and Havoc suspected he was sleeping again. His tongue slipped between his lips. "Speaking of. The colonel's been nodding off all morning. He stop by your place again?"

"Briefly. I made him coffee and told him to sober up. He left around one."

"Something happen between you?"

"What hasn't happened between us?" the blond said back distantly. Oh, he was getting good at this lying thing; more believable than the truth itself. Mustang wouldn't _fuck _Fullmetal; preposterous. "I told him off last night. Besides his goddamn post-war angst the bastard's overworking me. I get like, three cold cases a week."

"And he didn't bother you?" Havoc asked with a touch of concern. Delving into something that didn't have anything to do with him, probably, but he was always worried about the kid for reasons he couldn't explain. He knew Fullmetal didn't need the support, but after being nagged for years by his own family, watching over Ed had become almost automatic. There was a delicate side to Ed that most people didn't see; Jean intended to protect it.

Ed shuffled the photographs back into the manila folder, keeping his head down. He was not a very good actor, and he wanted to come across as pissed, not frightened, though he felt both. "No one worries this much about anyone, let alone me. Looking for me to do you a favor?" He laughed a bit, then cringed, a flash of memory piercing his brain. His breath hitched. His eyes snapped to Roy's hands; innocent pen, innocent, innocent, innocent. Nothing wrong.

_Fullmetal, please. Do this for me..._

_I need you, sweetheart. _

_You look just like her.  
_

"You look at each other funny."

Havoc moved to the right, forming a wall between Roy and the blond. He wanted to keep Edward's eyes on his own, not always flickering back to the colonel as if he expected the man to grow three heads. Indeed, he'd always noticed those looks, the ones he couldn't tag or trace, but still gave him bad vibes. It wasn't how a man should look at his subordinate. Wasn't how a man should look at his child.

"Things have been more tense than usual. I expect you two to fight, but you don't fight. You just stare. You whisper."

"You're trying to gauge our pissed-off levels. Why?" Ed asked, the file all but abandoned. The only reason anyone had ever shown concern for him was when they wanted something. "The colonel and I have a colorful history of not getting alone. Deal with it and move on."

"I didn't mean to upset you," Havoc answered. He dug around in his pocket for a cigarette, but found none. "I guess I'm just afraid that one day, one of you is going to snap and the other will end up paying for it." He froze up. He didn't want Ed to freak out on him. It was something his sister had told him once, that closed doors didn't stay closed. Closed doors.

His breath hitched as he saw the dark, finger-shaped bruise on the blond's jaw, previously hidden by a gold swathe of hair. He reached forward, but Ed flinched away, brushing his hair back over the mark quickly. Jean saw the boy's eyes flash to the colonel, still asleep at his desk, and then back to the manila folder in front of him.

"Someone hit you?"

"Slipped and hit my chin on the bathroom sink. Need to get a fucking rug or something in there," Ed explained, seemingly unruffled. Panic laced his blood like alcohol. Poisonous, and numbing. "Why? You trying to call me a girl again? Saying I can't take care of myself?" Tears pricked his eyes; honestly, that was another nail in the casket. He could take care of himself, given the opportunity, but with Mustang his defenses went to sleep. He became a victim.

Havoc looked taken aback, and stumbled for words. "That's not what I was implying."

"I don't mean to act like an ass about it," Ed amended, face turning a light shade of crimson. He felt Havoc's eyes burning into him, and slowly went back to what he was doing earlier. To him, and to him only, the questions seemed pervasive; of his space, his privacy, the little virtue he had left to call his. "I have enough problems without someone accusing me of having domestic issues."

* * *

The mess hall was crowded, and the lunch line had diminished to no more than a few people. Havoc followed Ed from a distance, perturbed by the silence that had gripped the boy since around eleven that morning. Jean wasn't sure what to think; on one hand, he was alarmed, because as soon as he had implied the idea of someone hurting him, Ed had turned colder than ice. Jean supposed he should just let it go, but there was a little voice that pestered him, told him to push the topic further.

Ed stopped for a larger man to pass with a tray of bread and soup. "Go ahead of me."

"Aren't you eating anything?"

Ed hesitated, scanning the room jadedly. There was no one he knew or wanted to talk to. They all gossiped about him behind his back as if he was impervious to it, but neglected to realize he was sixteen and therefore had better hearing than all of them combined. "Not today. Not hungry."

Havoc smiled sadly, looking over the teen's unnaturally thin body. The uniform, starch blue and always too clean, had fit him once as it was custom made; now, the jacket hung just a bit looser off the shoulders. "Careful, Elric. You're going to wither away into nothing."

"Food is trivial. Just like sex or money. It's a vice."

Ed brushed past Havoc unflinchingly, heading toward a mostly empty table occupied by Riza Hawkeye. He knew the military officers had either turned their heads toward him or glanced in his direction, though he pretended not to notice. He knew what they were thinking, not a stranger to the military's idea of a good story. They were desperate, perverted motherfuckers that seemed to like the idea of sexual taboo.

He found nothing sexy about a twelve-year-old giving head to his superior, but there you have it.

"Good afternoon, Edward," Hawkeye said, making room for him without once making visual contact. Her head was half buried in a book of law and the rest more interested in a bright red apple in her hand.

"Hey, lieutenant. Are you expecting anyone?"

She looked up, eyebrows raised slightly. "No. Why?"

"Not in the mood to be in a crowd right now, that's all," he muttered, sitting down next to her and then staring at the surface of the table as though he were having a fierce mental duel with it. If he had laser vision, he imagined he would have burned a giant hole. Though laser vision would better serve its purpose by melting Mustang's scrawny dick off.

"Havoc's right," Hawkeye said, delicately taking a bite of her apple. Ed's eyes flashed briefly toward it, though he quelled the thought of appeasing his hunger. He could never keep anything down. Bread tasted like sand, meat tasted like blood. Vegetables crunched like appendages. "You need to eat something. You're moody on an empty stomach."

"Eavesdropping, lieutenant? I figured you of all people would have the decency to keep out of me." He caught himself, face blushing scarlet. "Keep out of my life. I mean, I guess I appreciate the concern and all, but I...I've got a lot to think about without having to worry about _myself._"

"You concern us, Edward, and it's not hard to see why."

"Don't even bother cracking a short joke. I happen to hold the knowledge that I've grown at least six inches in the past few months."

"Is that so? Did automail really affect your height that much?" Riza asked with more energy than Ed would have liked to believe. She always avoided the heart of any conversation; trivial talk only, some details along the way, but she didn't invade privacy. She knew how to keep secrets and let others keep them as well. Most of the time.

"I guess," Ed replied. "But I'd gladly shove the damn things up my ass to get Al back."

Riza returned the smile with one of her own, though like any of her expressions, it didn't reach her eyes. There was too much sadness there. "Edward, I want you to start talking to the Colonel about this. He's been very worried about you lately. Won't stop talking about you." The smile widened, disguising the memory of alcohol, very fuzzy, the warm touch of hands on her waist, the words slipped into her ear. Her eyebrows furrowed together, and she went silent.

"I'm sure he won't. I'm pretty fucking aware of how worried he is. Bastard has a habit of cornering me when I don't want to look at him-"

"Seems the angel's got a foul mouth," a sarcastic voice spoke up from somewhere behind them.

That voice grated on his already grated nerves. He narrowed his eyes as he discovered Frank Archer, cold and tall and accompanied by two of his own majors. They were silent and unmoving, regular dogs that obeyed on a tight leash among the macaroni and loaves of stale bread. They glared down at him like he was worth the dirt on their standard issue boots.

"The hell do you want?" Ed demanded, casually slouching his posture. It conveyed calm and indifference. The particularly greasy higher-ups always seemed to like feeding his fire, which was fine. How else was he meant to entertain himself? Then again, Frank Archer was a dangerous breed of military dog. There was something faintly hungry about him.

"No need to have an attitude Fullmetal. I'm sure it'd really piss you off if you were knocked off the ladder a few rungs by a court marshal." Archer projected his voice over the crowd, and several officers' attentions were piqued.

"Go suck something long and hard. I've heard you're good at it," Ed muttered, folding his arms.

Riza frowned and went back to her book, though it was better said than done. She tended to ignore the arguments Fullmetal got into, frequent as they were, but if they ever turned dangerous or twisted she always intervened. So far, she stayed calm.

"Don't be a hypocrite. Everyone knows that your mouth is dirty, Fullmetal. Yet I don't think they know the extent. I do hope your commanding officers taught you how to swallow."

"Least you didn't deny anything. You get all those medals for being a good serviceman, or serviceman?"

Archer's face visibly darkened, but he said nothing to indicate offense. "How about we stop with the petty insults? We're all adults here. Well, most of us, anyway. Your maturity is questionable. Honestly, the only reason I'm even bothering to talk to you is to ask about your absence. The Fuhrer is especially concerned with how often you've been truant."

"I get sick," Ed mumbled, trying vainly to ignore him. There must have been a paper that circulated around headquarters, because any time he blinked, any time he said a word, someone commented. So it seemed, at least. Didn't make his paranoia very far-fetched. "You've seen Ishbal. You know how bad it gets."

"Right, Ishbal. Bunch of dog-fucking pigs. Speaking of, I could have sworn I'd heard that some poor red-eyed street fucks were caught downtown yesterday. Unfortunately they were slaughtered before the proper authorities could get to them. Did you cut them apart, or did your colonel do it in exchange for your ass?"

"Hey, watch your fucking mouth," Breda spoke up. Edward turned, finding that the red head had taken a seat beside him without his knowing it. He said nothing, grateful for the defense but at the same time wishing he could draw a boundary line between himself and those around him. This was his fight; he wasn't weak.

_"Colonel…please stop…"_

Archer smiled. He took a step forward, hands clasped behind his back. He looked Edward over as though surveying property, and Ed did likewise, noticing the observers stirring in the stare down. He flinched as the man leaned close to him, hand closing tightly around his wrist as if anticipating a punch. "Natural assumption. After all, you were known as the Angel of Death in the east a bit ago. Isn't that it? You lured the fuckers in with those innocent eyes and killed them when they weren't looking?" He laughed. "I only wish I could have been there to see."

"Following orders, sir," Ed said quietly, looking at the putrid colored cafeteria tiles. "I killed men to save myself. That's what war is. You go in, you burn, you plunder, you shoot, because they tell you to. Not because you want to." His free hand curled itself into a tight fist. He shook hard, trying not to remember more than he could handle. He didn't need to have a breakdown in the middle of headquarters.

Archer fed on the flames, the taste like sulfur and chalk and sin. Sweat pooled on his upper lip as though the temperature was physically rising. He wanted the boy's eyes to look him over, to quake and shiver and close as if caught in ecstasy or pain of death. "Enlighten me, Fullmetal," he said in a low whisper. "I really would like to know how you did. I am so very..."

Ed cringed as Frank's hand left his wrist and went to his chin, tilting his head toward the light. He wanted to break away.

"Curious…"

Ed closed his eyes. The sounds of the cafeteria drowned out his thoughts. Spoons, forks, clanking together in a myriad of revelry and the life he would never live. One without fear that the next day might be the last day. The last day before he decided to take one of those forks and cut a nice, deep line in his wrist and let the pain spill out like fire water. "You want to know what I did to them?" he asked, licking out at his salty tasting lips.

"Very much so, dear child."

"Well, you know Roy likes his fire. You know I'm good at molding the earth. It's interesting what happens when you bake a person in their own flesh, isn't it?" Ed asked, voice bitter and seductive and amused all at once. His eyes had tears in them, but they weren't shed; they were trapped in their own heat. "I covered them in sand and Roy melted it down. They were like goddamn statues."

_Beautiful enough for you?_

"Such a pretty story." Archer tilted his head to the side unflinchingly. "You were always the creative one, Fullmetal. I've known that since the day I first saw you, four years ago, that day on the fair grounds." Ed noted the whisper, sweet and unsung, directly spoken in his ear. "I had always assumed you tore their souls from their bodies, collected them like keepsakes in armor."

* * *

The cafeteria emptied, settling into gloom and the sound of trays being sprayed down with hard water. Edward trailed behind the last soldier, hands deep in his pockets. His knuckles oozed blood from where he had struck a cafeteria pillar; he insisted he hadn't been aiming for Frank Archer's face. The others vouched for him. Riza quoted the military law protocol, citing the section on appropriate defenses for sexual threat. Ed's almost-hit was reasonable.

He refused Havoc's invitation to walk with him, far too embarrassed over the run-in with Archer to have any casual conversations. There was something about Archer that reminded him of Mustang. They both had the same hungry, cloudy look in their eyes, as if they were barely restraining themselves from devouring him whole. It made him feel vulnerable, and vulnerability was a bitch. He would never admit to it being a characteristic of his.

He leaned against the cool wall, hot neck on concrete, and closed his eyes. Foggy memories stained the lids. Roy's face above him, breath on his neck, tongue in his mouth, that awful pain like nothing else as the man moved inside him. Feeling sticky blood coat his numb backside, flinching as he felt sticky hot erupt within him, those groans in his ear. Falling asleep. Not asleep. Passed out, really. Too much blood; he could smell it in his hair, and that had made his head go black.

The next part had confused him; waking up to a tender sort of hold. Wanting to scream or cry or demand retribution for the evil, evil thing he felt had been done to him. Roy had taken that last little purity, stained his soul with his own blood. He felt dirtier than the dirtiest, slimiest piece of shit in Amestris. A crime had been committed against him, an unspeakable deed that made him tremble.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps. Fear prickled up and down his spine. Mustang was with a general; Grumman, it looked like. At least the man wasn't alone. Edward didn't want to face the son of a bitch alone. He was afraid of what he might try. Afraid of how he would react.

"Fullmetal," Roy said calmly, hands clasped behind his back. He came to a stop in front of the blond, and Grumman followed his example, giving Ed a quick nod. The only sign of tension were the identical frowns on all three faces. Roy's eyes couldn't be read. "I see you left lunch late. I'd heard you got into a spat with Colonel Archer." He looked at him hard as if for confirmation.

Ed hesitated, looking back and forth between the two men, and then nodded. "Yes, sir. I needed to clear my head."

"Perhaps the courtyard would better suit the purpose," Grumman offered, not unkindly.

"Maybe," Roy agreed, "but Fullmetal and I have some business to attend to. It's better that we've run into each other here. Now I won't have to go looking for you." He closed his eyes and kept them closed until Grumman's footsteps receded from earshot. Only when the corridor was undeniably empty did he say anything at all.

"Is there a reason you were talking to Frank Archer, or do you really just want to irritate me?" he yelled, arms folded across his chest. His charcoal-black eyes danced minutely with hate, set in a face taut with anxieties he had to conceal. Grumman hadn't noticed in his old age, but Ed could smell strong whiskey.

"He came to me. I had nothing to do with it," Ed replied unsteadily. He looked at the concrete floor, and a small line of ants that marched through the cracks. Mustang was too close for comfort. "Accused me of being the military's personal concubine, for example."

"Fair enough. Are you?" Roy demanded.

"Am I what?"

"_Fucking _them."

"I already told you I'm not. I bled enough the other night, shouldn't that have tuned you into the fact that I'm a fucking virgin?" He hesitated, swallowing a lump that had developed painfully in his throat. He was getting worked up; chilled by the idea that the statement was no longer true. "Was a virgin. You...you fucking..." He leaned his forehead against the cool cement wall, golden eyes never leaving Mustang's face. "Do you have any idea what you've _done _to me?"

He started shaking. He wanted to fall limp to the ground, through the cracks in the floor where the ants marched. Disappear. His jaw trembled and his hair was coming loose from its bright red tie, lighter than sun in the corridor's ambiance; he was a nervous wreck, tormented by the gaze that held him in place, but mute. What could he possibly say? Give it back?

Roy's mouth was thin, posture descriptively uncomfortable; he shifted from foot to foot, as if he had uttered a foul word in the presence of a child and needed to redeem himself. He reached out to touch the blond, but Edward flinched away, crossing his arms protectively as if to hide the buttons on his uniform.

"Don't you fucking touch me," he growled, the tight clutch of tears evident in his tone. "Don't you _ever _fucking touch me again. It's like everything's all different, and I can't even look at you, so goddamn, just stop looking at _me_."

Roy nodded his head, eyes unfocused and raw. He was in that far-away land of lost hope, where only alcohol could numb reality long enough to still the fear. It was common knowledge that the colonel liked skipping lunch in favor of indulging in his liquor drawer. Today he hadn't disappointed himself.

He ran his hand through his hair, sighing. What to do, what to do. He thought; thought of all the legal consequences, once again. It was about ten years maximum sentencing for raping a minor. If he could convince the court it was consensual, then maybe five. Nevertheless, not exactly good for a man pursuing the position of Fuhrer. He looked at the blond against the wall, slightly irritated that the little shit was being so goddamn selfish.

He looked him over. The kid had barely taken care with his appearance; the uniform hung loose, buttoned wrong, collar bent down. The black sweater he wore beneath the jacket showed. His hair was coming out of the tie, cold static making strands stick up in the air. A rather pathetic sight, but Roy (hated) to think he rather. Liked it.

He took a step forward, noting the small flinch. Oh, yes. He liked it. "Come with me to my office, Edward. Let's get you cleaned up." His voice must have betrayed something, because the blond just stared at him. Precious gold shed crystal droplets onto the plain floor. "Don't look at me like that."

"I'm not going with you."

"You will," Roy whispered, circling him so that he was behind him, taking in every little detail. The scent of dead leaves and bran and wheat. He spoiled himself with the memories of the night before, and he felt his cock twitch in response. It was coming back for him; the madness was coming back for him. He didn't care.

One more second of that hot confusion, and before he knew it, Edward found himself pressed against the wall, not exactly pinned but unable to make an escape.

"You listen to me," Roy said, lips too close for comfort. That sickly warm feeling tingled in Ed's blood. The feeling that made him want to cry, or scream, or run. "I'll do whatever the fuck I want with you." He took the boy's chin in his hand, tilting his head so that the light hit his eyes _just right. _

"I never got the memo."

Edward closed his eyes; knew from the warmth on his cheek that the man was staring, smelling, lingering, tempted by the idea of tasting. He couldn't breathe. Wished Alphonse were still alive; if Alphonse were alive, Roy would never dare come so close, because the younger brother would inevitably follow.

"I own your mind," Roy whispered thoughtfully, brushing stray hair out of Edward's face with gloved fingers. He made a careful point of letting his thumb run over the boy's temple, emphasizing his words. "When you were just a child you gave that to me. Offered it in exchange for that pretty watch in your pocket."

"You'll never understand it."

"Maybe not. But it's still mine, isn't it?" the man murmured close to his ear. "And _this_..." He forced their bodies against the other, and Ed whimpered unintentionally, intimidated by the grind of Mustang's erection against him. Opened his eyes. They were dark with wet restraint. Please, please, please. Turned his head, trying to find someone, anyone. Was pulled back by white gloves.

"Don't look away," Roy commanded, sweat dotting his brow like blood had dotted his nightclothes. "I only want to borrow your body for a while. Surely that's what we call an equivalent exchange."

"I don't live by that law anymore; there's no such thing."

"Then by all means," Roy said with upturned lips, "suffer."


	6. Bargain

_"He's still crying, isn't he?"_

_"No," Maes Hughes replied, "he's unconscious. Fell asleep about ten minutes ago, right after he made the examination."  
_

_"I want to see him," Roy said softly, looking with tired eyes toward the door. He could see the blood shining like red ribbon in a pretty girl's hair. Everything was as quiet as midnight could allow, the rafters whispering with wind and ghosts. "Do you think he'd wake if I came in, or..." He stopped himself, remembering that Edward had taken to rocking back and forth in the small room for the past few hours, his eyes so dark and traumatized it took all the restraint in the world not to comfort him. _

_He didn't know if he could face him like that. So much suffering; the boy had gone through hell to get Alphonse's body back to the way it was, and now the child had been slaughtered like an animal. All of Edward's torment had gone to nothing. The war, the bloodbath, the methods the army had used to ensure his cooperation: all for Alphonse.  
_

_If anyone stepped forward, the kid had flinched away, asking for tools, asking for nice rubber gloves. He forced a monotone that didn't fit his charisma. Performed an autopsy right there in the dank cold of the warehouse - on his own fucking brother. Then he asked for his coat. His red one. Roy regretfully told him that the jacket didn't exist anymore, that it had burned in the war and they weren't ever going to get it back. He supposed that's when Ed told everyone to get the fuck out, because they left a few minutes later, abandoning the teen to soak in the after drowsiness of tears and misery._

_"Go ahead. But don't wake him up if you know what's good for you," Hughes said, taking his glasses off. He was watching the floor without emotion, clearly trying to fight back the horrific images that pricked his vision. They came like the after-stain of a photograph. "I don't want to hear him cry anymore. I can't."  
_

_Roy's footsteps echoed in the blackness. Hesitantly, he turned back to Hughes. "Is...the body still there?" What a careless, thrown-about word.  
_

_Maes shook his head, eyes watering. "We…we haven't figured out how to get him out yet. The barbed wire was bolted into the wall, and the corpse hardened around it. Take into account we'd need Ed out of the room before we tore him off." He choked a little on the last few words._

_Roy swallowed. He had seen the body in a brief glimpse - brief, because even soldiers crumbled at a child's death - but wanted to take a closer look. If Edward could handle it, it was only reasonable that he should help him out of the chasm. "I'm just going to check on him."_

_"Don't expect him to talk to you. Don't expect him to...open up. Don't say anything out of line, okay?"_

_"I wasn't planning on it."  
_

_Hughes' expression turned grave. "And don't think that this changes anything."_

* * *

"Swallow."

Ed shut his eyes at the command, trembling and wishing Roy would just take it back, remove his hand and let him spit the shit out. It tasted like - well, salt for one thing, and an unnameable, undignified flavor as well. The office was empty, an unholy silence encouraging him to just obey so that Roy might let go of his hair and ease his scalp.

He hesitated, praying to a God he didn't believe in, before allowing the sticky wet in his mouth to slide down. He tried not to think about it. Relax the throat and keep the face expressionless, because weakness meant punishment. His face felt hot, and he knew he must have been scarlet; his knees hurt from being on the floor for so long, and he trembled, echoes of moans in his ear, the painful tugs on his hair-

"Can I leave now?" Edward asked. He bowed his head so that his bangs could cover his eyes. He didn't want to look at the man anymore. Felt dirty and bound by an unsaid contract, but he wasn't getting anything in return. The chink of a belt buckling filled the space, a desolate finality that resonated.

"Of course." Roy smirked, pulling the teen up by the forearms. He kept his hold, staring at him as if he was some precious jewel kept locked in a safe. How Edward hated that look. One day, he hoped that Roy would get it smacked the fuck off his face by someone that didn't tolerate it. He was a person, not an object; not some stone, though he might as well be. "It's getting hard to believe I'm the only one you've ever slept with."

"Give me my hair tie back." Ed held out his hand expectantly. When Roy had dragged him into the room (he'd fought, he really had, just not hard enough evidently) the tie had been ripped from his hair in the struggle.

Roy's eyebrows arched in mild surprise. Begrudgingly releasing the blond, he pulled Ed's hair tie from his pocket, thin gold strands tangled in the thread and glinting in office dust. "I kind of wanted you to leave it down." The smirk widened, and he held the tie a little higher, dark playfulness shadowing his features. "Is this what you want?"

Ed nodded, glaring.

"Then come closer and get it."

Edward did nothing for a moment. He absolutely loathed that tone, knowing that Roy was clearly enjoying his _very _temporary dominance, but stepped forward anyway. He reached for the tie, but Roy caught him again by the wrist, pulling him swiftly closer. Ed had no time to react and didn't plan on it; he was used to Roy's tongue in his mouth by now, and simply let it pass through.

The taste made him withdraw to the back of his own mouth; it wasn't bad in itself, not really. Perhaps the lack of consent made anything bitter. It was wet and made his stomach churn with something that wasn't quite nausea, but more painful, like the taste of Mustang had infiltrated his body and blood.

Roy pushed him away without warning. "Here." He threw him the tie, and Ed caught it wordlessly. He turned his back to the man, not much admiring the smug ass smile still plainly stretched there. It was perverse and strange and goddamn it, he hated it. Hated knowing that, in Roy's mind, he was probably doing _other _things, things he needn't have clothes for.

He ran his fingers through his hair to sort through the mess of soft tangles and knots, static catching in the warm dry air of the office, before pulling it all into a ponytail.

Eyes on the back of his head, breath on his neck. "Take your time." Roy's voice was gravelly and low.

"Go do something productive," Ed muttered.

Someone pounded on the door, and his head turned sharply toward it. He glanced at Mustang inquisitively. Ed almost wanted to leave his appearance disheveled and sex-worn, give some evidence to incriminate the fucker standing just beside him. But he was a dog chained to its master. Legalities aside, he didn't want Mustang in trouble. So he panicked.

Roy nodded in comprehension. "Act natural," he said softly, buttoning his pants, slicking his hair back down. He smiled grimly in Ed's direction, appreciating his obedience, his loyalty. Ed pretended not to have seen, swallowing the remnants of saliva and semen, and took a bored-looking position on the couch, propping his feet up on the table. Roy cleared his throat when the scene appeared as innocent as was humanly possible. "Enter."

A soldier opened the door, coming in and saluting the both of them simultaneously. "A message from the chief of the civilian police, Martin Creme. He requests your presence immediately, Major Elric. He's sent a car for you."

"What does he want? What's happened now?" Ed asked, a lingering dread setting in. There were only two occasions Martin Creme directly sent for him. Either he had taken an interrogation with a criminal too far (the bastards were asking for it), or...

"Apparently there's been another murder. They found her last night."

Ed looked down at the ugly green tile floor, memories a sweeping tide. Last night. That meant she'd been found around the time he'd been deflowered. Ironic. "Phone him, tell him I'll be there as soon as I can." He stood up, putting on his best look of nonchalance. "They need me," he said darkly, daring Roy to try holding him back, either physically or emotionally. If there was one thing the colonel wasn't a complete asshole about, it was Al; anything in connection to his brother, especially this case, was untouchable as far as the man was concerned.

Roy bit his tongue, an amused smile crossing his lips. "Of course, Fullmetal. You have my permission."

"I don't need your permission, bast - _sir_."

"Maybe not, but I could order you to stay if need required it. You don't want me to keep you away from the case that killed Al, now do you?"

"What the fuck do you want now, Mustang?" Ed demanded through gritted teeth, trying to keep his tone as civil as possible despite the overwhelming urge to scream. He was already walking on eggshells. Maybe the soldier's company was making him less afraid and docile, though he knew he'd pay for it in blood when the man left. "Sir?"

"I want to accompany you," Roy said simply.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because if you think I'm going anywhere alone with you, you're more fucked in the head than I thought."

Ed realized that although his eyes burned with hate, his fist was trembling. He doubted Roy would be able to get away with hurting him in public, but he knew he'd have to deal with the man hovering over his shoulder and touching him whenever the mood struck him. His pride would never let him do anything about it but try to stay close to the crime scene and validate the man's advances as a personal, paternal relationship.

Most people believed that, and he wished they didn't.

"I'd advise not speaking to me like that in front of underlings, Fullmetal," Roy said steadily, a rosy tint to his otherwise pale flesh the only sign he was enraged, "It isn't good for my reputation. Anyway, I don't trust those civilian cops, especially around my men. I'm coming with you for protection."

"Protection from what?" Ed said, growing more frustrated by the second. "You think I can't defend myself?"

"Edward, your skills aren't under question, though I'll admit that recently you haven't shown the ability to fight off your own inner demons, let alone a serial killer."

Ed laughed bitterly. "Inner demons? Are you referring to the hell I'm living or the shit that you've put me through?" The officer at the door ignored the argument, pretending to be engrossed by the thinning rug beneath the coffee table. Edward didn't care if he was eavesdropping; no one could read between the lines.

"I'm referring to your insomnia and your painkiller addiction and your eating habits, but yes, I suppose your brother's death might have an effect on that. Therefore, I'd really like to keep you from becoming another victim." The smug attitude disappeared like a candle blown out in the wind, a true, dark seriousness appearing in the man's stare. "I don't want that to happen to you."

Ed bit his lip. Fighting was useless; perhaps he'd known that when the argument began. He thought about it for a moment or to, ultimately deciding no harm could be done, before replying weakly, "Then Lieutenant Havoc's coming too."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Ed whispered, quietly smoldering. "You can protect me from a killer, but I'll need someone to protect me from you." The last sentence was barely audible, intended for Mustang's ears only. The cadet was ignorant of the tension between the two, and cleared his throat. Ed told him quickly that they were coming ("Hold your goddamn horses"); then, for the second time in a day, wished Roy would suddenly drop dead.

Though he knew that if that were to happen, he might just have to kill himself. Sadly, Roy was the last physical contact - the absolute last physical contact - he was receiving or would ever receive again.

* * *

_Roy was shoved into the wall, Hughes' infuriated breath hot on his neck. The house rattled with the impact of the violent thrust, and Roy wondered if he had woken the man's wife or daughter asleep in their beds. All he'd wanted was a talk. All he'd wanted was a little comfort. But comfort had turned into a whispered plea, one that Maes had refused, and that led to his stupid, stupid fucking mouth blubbering on and on about god knows what. _

_"What the fuck has gotten into you?" Maes seethed, glasses reflecting moonlight.  
_

_Roy smiled, drunkenly pushing Maes' hands away. His dark eyes slid over the file in Hughes' hands; records and dates and numbers, and the information in the man's brain that flickered and burned like a broken light bulb. The Charleston case record. "I haven't touched him if that's what you're worried about."  
_

_Hughes' breath hitched, and without thinking, he slammed a fist into Roy's jaw. Small specks of blood stained his knuckles soon after, but Roy hardly flinched, breathing deep. He smelled of liquor. "You better damn well hope you never do, either. If you ever - if you do anything to him - you're staying here tonight, do you understand that?"  
_

_"What?" Roy's smile widened so that bloody teeth glinted. "You have something against it? These feelings. You so __fucking hypocritical that you can twist my words and make me look like a sick son of a bitch, when you know goddamn well you did the same thing back in the old days?"_

_His leather jacket was too hot to wear in this hallway. He closed his eyes as a thick, warm drop of perspiration slid down his forehead and across his cheekbone. His thoughts were so sweet, so delicious, so beautiful. Hughes couldn't understand because Hughes didn't know Edward like he did. Even then, he could remember the blood filled room - the haunting melody of sobs - the need to hold him and make him stop crying so overwhelming he couldn't _let go. _  
_

_He didn't know what had happened; two nights ago, when Al was murdered, he had come into the warehouse with a clear head. Bought some drugs from a black man in the alley on the other side, gone back to the scene at around ten to find an investigation brewing. Edward had melted into his arms and just let him hold him and touch him and breathe into his fear-matted hair, uncaring and oblivious. It was like the war days but more personal and less chaotic._

_"That was different and you know it. That was-"_

_"Experimentation? The last resort? What, we ran out of options and the nearest slut was two hundred miles away?"_

_"The difference is that it wasn't a kid half my age I was lusting after! If he was interested, I wouldn't blame either of you, I'd be open to the idea in time but you're talking like a fucking psychopath. Listen to yourself talk and try to tell yourself it isn't crazy."_

_Roy was silent for a moment. "He loves me," he slurred pathetically.  
_

_"Not like that. Damn it, what's happened to you?" Hughes asked, gripping him tightly by the collar of his jacket, the material slippery in his heated hands. He was whispering now, realizing that the shouting might wake up his daughter or his wife, and he knew he wouldn't like explaining what Roy had been talking about just a few minutes before. "Both of you. What the fuck happened to the both of you that screwed you up so badly?"_

_Roy opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw trembled, and he closed it._

_"I know you're drunk and I know you've both been put through the worst kind of hell imaginable, but keep - keep that kind of trash to yourself from now on. Understand? I'll have no choice but to send him away from here if you can't promise me that."  
_

_"This isn't just drunkenness," Roy retorted, fervently shaking his head. "I love him. I love him so much I can't stand it. Sometimes I lie awake at night just, trying to drink so damn much that maybe eventually I'd forget about him. Temporarily. But then I start to dream, and I'm back to wanting. I want to stop wanting but I can't, don't you understand that?"_

_"You can," Hughes corrected. "You just don't want to try." He turned away.  
_

_"No!" Roy shouted, clutching at Hughes' military jacket. "He'll come around, I know he will, he's just afraid…I couldn't expect him to get over the loss of his brother so quickly. Give him some time. Give us both some time."_

_"Listen to yourself! Stop pretending like you care about those children because you don't. You've lost yourself. I can't talk to you coherently anymore, you're so fucked up, Roy. You say you don't remember anything about the night Alphonse was killed, and yet you were there, you tried to…"_

_"I'm not _like _that."_

_"Then prove it!" Hughes said, unbidden tears stinging his eyes. He had to turn away, pressing a hand to his mouth. He quieted as a small voice called to him from the bedroom down the hall. He waited a moment before saying, "I want you to go. Elysia's awake now. Don't ever come back here this late again."_

_Roy watched him, guilt flooding his body. "Maes…"_

_"Go."_

_Roy turned sharply, swallowing the lump that had grown uncomfortably in his throat. He didn't say goodbye; such things were above and below him now. He was on another plane of existence entirely. He couldn't even muster the emotional strength to apologize, to explain himself, to do something.  
_

* * *

"So, Fullmetal," Havoc said, the metallic scent of blood making him nauseated, "I know you're having fun playing in the mud and all, but I'm certainly not. Can we just find the bad guy and go home, please?"

Ed rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I'm right on it. I'll be sure to finish this so you can get home to your beer and your porn." He flinched as a group of investigators turned on a bright light behind him. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to it, scanning the crimson-stained grass. "This one's disgusting," he commented, sounding stupid for stating the obvious.

"I'll say," Havoc agreed. "Where's the body?"

Ed inclined his head to the far end of the field, where there was a circle of dogs and police around a lumpy sheet. "I've already seen her. I wouldn't look if I were you. Hate to be the one to tell you this, but forensics doesn't like mistaking vomit for evidence." He couldn't help but snicker as he walked away, wondering if Havoc was following. He kept his arms folded protectively across his chest, the soft wind chilling him. He could hear cars on the highway a few dozen yards off.

The body had been found by a teenage girl who was interviewed summarily by Martin Creme, but apparently was in too much shock to really give much information. The body was found at four PM when she was walking home from school, and she had taken a short cut through the field and found the body covered in mice. It was estimated to be over three days old. Because of the time period, it was already beginning to rot, and Ed could smell the stench of congealed blood no matter which direction he faced.

Ed went to the mangled corpse on the ground, the blood trails winding and nearly absorbed in the earth where it hadn't dried out completely in a flaky red crust. Underneath the sheet, there was a face stretched wide in eternal scream, the faint traces of lip gloss eaten away by maggots and slime. The body was bloated and sticky and moist, and as the serial killer had made a point of doing, was choked in several places by a long string of barbed wire. "Havoc."

"Yeah?" Havoc asked, approaching him from behind. His nose twitched unpleasantly.

"What do you think?"

"Think about what?"

"Was she killed here or somewhere else?"

"Definitely somewhere else," Havoc murmured, catching sight of the girl's pale left wrist under the sheet. Scars crossed the flesh like quaint decoration. "Torture inflicted wounds. Young. And the barbed wire is definitely this guy's MO. Did they run a rape kit on the body? I don't think this fucker's ever raped his victims, so that could be the definitive detail to see if this was a copycat."

"Very good," Ed said with some surprise. Jean was relatively well informed, considering crime wasn't his jurisdiction. He pointed to the highway, then at the slight creases in the grass, marked with numbers on little paper cards. The slightly muddied sole of a footprint stuck out in the bed of the earth, the shoe size a men's eleven and the brand something foreign but popular. "She wasn't raped, no. None of the victims were. These murders aren't sexually motivated - unusual, considering most of the victims are either prostitutes or young girls."

Havoc nodded. "And the highway?"

"Obviously she was dumped here, and most likely during a time where there was little traffic. He would have needed to pull off to the gravel edge of the highway, because there's no tire tracks. He probably carried her about ten yards from that gravel ditch. Maybe three days ago. We're lucky we came before the rain really set in, else the footprint would have been washed away."

"It scares me how deeply you think about this."

"I've dealt with serial killers before, or have you forgotten?"

Havoc's face fell, remembering Scar, the Homunculus, the ice-truck murderer. Bastards he'd failed to protect Ed from, repeatedly. "I haven't forgotten."

"Bring me the photographs of the victims. All of them," Ed demanded, kneeling on the ground. He looked at the girl's cold wrists, nonchalantly noticing the chunks of cold flesh missing. It was always something different; random body parts, as if the killer had torn at them in a fit of rage. Like they were nothing more than dolls.

Havoc mock-saluted him. "Yes sir. Would you like some tampons with that?"

Ed waited as Havoc retrieved the file, intently staring at the broken body in the mud. Blood coated her blond hair; he suspected she had died of head trauma in the end, whenever that end had occurred. He just wished he could figure out how long these girls actually, physically lasted once the Charleston took them. Hours? Days? It was impossible to tell. They were creatures of the night.

In a morbid sort of way, he wished this had been a child; children were easier to keep track of. Children went missing and were _missed. _

"Here you are, Fullmetal. Just in time for you to go home and take pill to help the cramps," Jean said once he'd returned.

"Please shut up." Ed roughly grabbed the file from Havoc's extended hands, flipping through it rapidly. He got to the photograph section and put a thin finger to the page, running it across every beaten face from the morgue, resting briefly over Alphonse, closing his eyes. "What do you notice about all the victims, Havoc?" he whispered softly.

Jean shook his head, scrutinizing them. "They're all dead?"

"They're all blond, excluding Alphonse and the first two victims on the list. They didn't live in or around Central," Ed said, lightly moistening his lips with his tongue.

"Please explain; my brain doesn't function on your level."

"I have two theories. The first two victims were a married couple in the countryside. They were left hanging by their wrists from barbed wire. My first theory is that the murderer originates from that area, or was traveling there. It was his first kill, so he didn't have time to find a pretty victim. My second theory is that he was interrogating them for information. I'm leaning towards theory number one."

"And the reason the victims after are blond?"

"Personal preference?"

"You think he might go after you?" Havoc asked with a shakier breath than necessary. The thought of this psychotic creep killing Alphonse was bad enough, but if the son of a bitch made Ed bleed like that, he'd probably go on a rampage. The Charleston had taken too many kids already. He wished the fucker would spare Ed, because Ed had seen hell too many times.

"I don't know," Ed said honestly. "I'm a guy but that didn't stop him from killing Al. He might have known Hughes was head of the investigation at the time, killed Al to get back at him. Scare him off the case. Though really, it would have been more logical going after Elysia or Gracia. I don't know. I don't want to think about it."

Ed was doing it again. Emanating disconnection, as though his mind weren't physically part of his body. Sometimes Havoc worried about him; became concerned about the toll the Charleston murders had on his still developing mentality. But there was nothing he could do. Ed could make his own decisions. He certainly wouldn't impose on him; he knew Ed hated making contact with people, especially after he and Al's bodies were restored. It was as though they had gone to war with their minds intact and come back with them torn apart, in exchange for a few limbs.

Havoc didn't know what he preferred: his body being ripped from him, or his mind imploding on itself.

* * *

"You look like a lion on the hunt," Archer said, hands clasped behind his back. He and Roy were enshrouded in shadow, watching the scene unfolding under bright artificial light. Roy suppressed a yawn, watching Ed from the corner of his eye, amazed at how professional and collected the boy seemed to be amongst blood and death. He must have been right at home. "Your prey's right there. Snatch him up."

Roy ignored him. He focused on Fullmetal, waiting for a moment, any moment, where it would be appropriate to approach him, help him, touch him. Just a little contact would keep him going another hour or so. He waited for Ed to turn his head, so he could get a glimpse of the teen's eyes; they always soothed him, pulled him into another world where everything was simpler. Rich and golden and innocent.

"I'm glad to know you still know how to keep your hands to yourself, when it matters. It's kind of a shame. I was really hoping that your breakdown during the war would fuck you up so bad you'd relinquish your political dreams, but you haven't, have you?" Archer laughed, catching Roy's stare and smiling satisfactorily. "Don't worry; once I'm Fuhrer, I'll take good care of the kid for you. Might even let you get a taste from your prison cell."

"I have no intention of letting you near him," Roy muttered, keeping his distance from Frank and his mind on his subordinate. "Besides which, you have no idea what you're talking about. My interest in Fullmetal is purely professional."

"Bullshit," Archer said. "Let's not ignore the elephant in the room. He's beautiful. Probably has the prettiest little ass I've seen in the military since Hawkeye's. And I think we can agree he's not as intelligent as he claims; too agreeable. Let's face it, Mustang. You didn't endorse Fullmetal because of his abilities - not the alchemical ones, anyway."

"Then why don't you report me?" Roy asked, giving up the game but otherwise unconcerned.

"Maybe I've decided that isn't in my interests," Archer said, a wild gleam in his eyes. "If it got out Fullmetal was being sexually exploited by a commanding officer, the higher-ups would do one of two things depending on their mood: shoot him to keep him quiet, or discharge him, send him far away. And where would that leave me? No, no. I want to get rid of you, but I want him more."

Roy turned to face him sharply, a small flame fighting to blaze within him as he disgustedly examined Archer's expression. It was lustful, far-off; Roy realized with a small tremor that it was the same look he found himself giving Ed on numerous occasions. He never understood how unsettling it was until he was staring at it himself. "You're a despicable, sick bastard."

Archer shrugged. "Takes one to know one."

Roy bit his lip, joining Archer's side. They stood in silence, the investigation proceeding without paying them notice. Echoing voices bounced off of nothing in the cool night air, traffic in the distance making for an oddly pleasant scene. Roy felt his drowsiness begin to catch up with him. He couldn't remember a time he had ever felt more tired. And with the intense fatigue he so desperately tried to hide from the higher-ups, came a depression so morbid he honestly considered dashing away his life.

"I'm not letting you go near him," Roy said at last, his tone quite less intimidating than he'd intended. Edward would not be dirtied by Frank Archer. The boy had been warped by chaos and every kind of evil, but for some reason those things didn't compare to the foul lust of another man. "If you touch him, I'll put you in a literal hell."

"Death threats, Mustang?"

"No," Roy murmured, "a promise."

* * *

Ed rubbed at his tired eyes, sitting next to Havoc on the hood of a parked police car. He gazed up at the stars that were barely visible, reaching a hand up as though he could touch them. A light blue painted the sky, rendering the infinite galaxy finite. "There seemed to be more in the countryside. It's a shame. When you surround yourself with lights, you miss out on the real ones."

"I'm sorry, what?" Havoc asked, not really paying attention. He had been listening to the investigation unit pack up the transportable objects for the night, a loud zip indicating the dead girl was being sent to the morgue. He felt ill, knowing the young woman's relations weren't likely to find out about her horrific death until morning. If she had any, granted.

"The stars?"

"Oh, right," Havoc said with a small smile. "I remember those. I'm a country-boy myself. Used to stay up late with my brothers and sisters, falling asleep in the grass. Woke up with bug bites everywhere. But I think it was worth it."

Ed tilted his head to the side. It felt heavy, like it held water. A slight chill worked up his spine, and he felt an uncomfortable urge to sidle closer to Havoc, using his body heat for warmth. Would that make him a whore? Would Jean understand, and not take it as anything more than friendly affection? Or would he take? "I never knew you grew up in the country. What part? Around Resembool?"

Havoc shrugged, trying to remember. He hadn't been there in years, though his family had occasionally visited him. At home. In hospitals. "God, if I could remember I'd tell you. I don't talk to my family much. I have a lot of siblings though. Seven. Can't appreciate something when you have a lot of it; I guess that's why I've always envied you and Al."

"What do you mean?"

"You two were so close," Havoc whispered, stealing a glance at the boy. A breeze fluttered his hair. "I've never seen such damn...symbiosis. It was like you were one person and two different people at the same time. I've always said to myself that if one of you died, the other might die, too." As soon as he said that, he regretted it, though Ed seemed not to have heard.

"I miss him." Ed leaned back against the windshield, folding his arms behind his head. "I miss him all the time. I wake up and I turn to say good morning, and he's not there. I walk down the street and I wonder why he's not with me. And more than anything, I wonder if there's a hell; if there's a heaven." Life experiences solidly told him no.

Havoc sighed, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He looked at them for a considerable moment in his hand, before pocketing them quietly. Edward was enjoying a sacred moment; he wouldn't cloud it up with smoke. "Not in the mood. "

"Never heard you say that before."

"I don't like smoking around you." Kind of a foolish thing to say. The boy had obviously been around much worse things. The smoke of burning flesh in Ishbal, for example. But perhaps that's why Jean adhered to such stupid little rules. If he could save Ed from torment, even a microscopic amount, he had done his job. "You look exhausted."

Edward's eyes were closed, his breathing even and steady. "God, really?" Ed asked with dripping sarcasm.

"You've been overworking yourself, with this murder and whatever else they have you do. I'm glad the colonel's letting you take weekends off, but you need more sleep, Ed. Stop taking on every case you get and devote some time to yourself. Should I talk to him myself?"

"The only case I'm working is about my brother," Ed grumbled. "I hardly call that a lot of trouble. And don't you _dare _talk to that bastard colonel about anything, unless it's to shoot him."

"This shit is killing you." Jean turned somber, unsure of how to say what he wanted without making Ed have another paranoid fit. He wanted to tell Ed - order Ed - to hand the case to someone else, someone more experienced, someone older. As far as he was concerned, Ed was already a walking target. "Besides, I don't like this guy, the Charleston murderer. You are the epitome of what he wants."

"I'm not afraid this piece of shit." The stars looked like a butterfly net. "Come and get me, that's what I say."

"I'm afraid he'd really hurt you-"

"Fullmetal."

Ed whipped his head around, dread pooling in his stomach as he caught the eye of the colonel himself. He turned away with a quick breath, detecting the smoldering glare before it targeted him directly. Roy's fingers were twitching together like mad, a whisper of cloth and the fizz of sparks. "Something wrong, Mustang?"

"No, Edward," Roy replied coolly. "Just getting a breath of fresh air. Something stank where I was standing."

Something in the man's tone made Ed think exactly the opposite. Anger, sarcasm, and a touch of jealousy, perhaps? He caught Archer's smirk somewhere in the shadows of the parking lot, the leer catching him by surprise as the man identified him. He didn't have to take another guess to determine that the two colonels had been arguing, and most likely, about him.

He hopped off the car, but didn't make any move toward the man. Jean stood beside him, and Edward became suddenly aware of their height difference. Jean was at least a head and a half taller.

"Lieutenant," Roy said icily, nodding at Havoc. Ed felt a bad, bad urge to run away across the field, into the woods, and through the river. Roy looked absolutely murderous, and he recalled with a twinge of helplessness the unrelenting abuse he'd had to endure earlier. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's getting late and I was concerned over whether or not Elric had a way of getting home."

"No, I don't," Edward admitted, not certain of where the conversation was headed. "I was planning on walking."

"It's at least three miles away," Roy argued, raising his eyebrows in feigned concern.

"Do I look like I care?" Ed threw his arm up in agitation. "I need the exercise. Sue me."

"You're hardly sixteen, Edward. I'm not letting you walk alone, in the dark, down a busy road this far from the city."

"At least it's busy."

"I don't care. I don't want you out of my sight." He glanced briefly toward Havoc, insinuating an invisible threat. "There are men in this city that don't care about gender or age. Long hair and a pretty face is all the excuse they need to hurt you."

Ed stiffened despite his best effort to control himself. He couldn't break eye contact with Mustang, even if he desperately wanted to. The stare would fade into a memory of looking up at that face, in agony, in confusion, as the man touched him. Sunk his teeth in his skin and penetrated him so deep he could feel blood all the way by his head. He almost forgot reality, and his lips parted as if to beg his mind to stop playing the tape. "I can take care of myself." Maybe.

"I'll gladly take you home," Roy muttered, eyes heavy with a dark and smoldering hunger, enunciating the word 'gladly' with perhaps more vigor than he cared to hide. He enjoyed seeing how much he could get away with; how long he could hold out before Havoc intervened. Not that the man ever would. Jean was as clueless as everyone else.

"You don't have to do that," Ed managed, voice an anxiety-ridden squeak. His face felt hot and a warm trembling weakened his knees. It was spreading all over; he could hear himself breathing, could feel the angry, terrified tears as they built behind his eyelids. "You don't have to do that."

Roy began walking towards him, and Ed inhaled sharply, expecting to be hit, expecting to be thrown on the ground, expecting to be kissed and smothered by bitter cologne and alcohol.

"I'll take him, sir. It's no problem," Jean said with a light, worried smirk. He put a reassuring hand on Edward's shoulder, squeezing. "I think he might be having some anxiety issues tonight; I know you can get a little harsh sometimes, being the colonel and all." He said it all as if he were joking, though Ed detected the subtle compliance of someone concerned.

"I wouldn't want him to burden you like that, lieutenant."

"I don't mind," Havoc said bitingly, "he's not much trouble and he only lives a couple blocks away from me."

Roy thought for a moment. He was as still as stone, contemptuous for everything including the ground he walked on. If he took his argument any further, Jean's suspicions would surely be confirmed. It would be foolish to downright demand Fullmetal's company. "I suppose that would work out. Just keep him intact for me. Dead subordinates don't equal points with the brass." He attempted a playful smile, but it ended up frightening.

Ed's nerves were on fire. He stayed in place, completely silent, unwilling to believe that for one night he might be safe. He was scared. The flame alchemist wanted him obsessively, to a point where he was borderline psychotic. He couldn't possibly be expected to think that the man would just let him go free.

And of course, there were always strings attached. Roy jerked him away from Havoc in one quick, hard movement; Ed winced, and Roy was in his face, glaring at him through slitted, dark eyes. He couldn't look away, felt trapped and bound, as if at any moment Roy could snap his arm in half.

"You're starting to hurt my feelings," Roy said, his breath hot. "If you keep avoiding me like this, I'm going to have to keep stretching out our moments together. Understand?"

Ed just stared, not feeling. No. Not longer, please not longer, please don't hurt me again. A tear caught in his lashes, and he tried to blink it away. "Are you coming over tonight?" Havoc couldn't hear. Havoc would never hear; Havoc was staring off into the distance, at a female cop; he whistled at her, asked her for her number. Roy scrabbled for Ed's jaw, forcing his head around.

"I'll be busy tonight. But tomorrow morning, I expect you in my office. We're going to have a good long talk."

"What would it take to make you stop?" Ed whispered, that same tear dribbling down his face. Roy smirked at the wet streak it left, and then brushed the boy's cheek with his gloved thumb.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." The man's eyes roamed up and down his body, and he chuckled darkly, running his free hand surreptitiously along the curve of the blond's waist. Ed froze, flinching back a bit, and closed his eyes against the pervasive touch. "And, Edward. I should have said something earlier, but it slipped my mind...this little eating habit of yours. Makes you incredibly appealing..." He made to nuzzle into the teen's throat, but Havoc cursed behind them.

Ed turned his head; apparently, the female cop had turned him down, and spilled coffee on him to boot. When he looked back for Roy, the man was gone, slipped away into the darkness.


	7. Obsess

"Charlie," Roy pleaded, the words reverberating around the room cloyingly. He felt stupid, like he had repeated them billions of times before in the same whining, desperate tone. Sweat ran down his face in cold streams, and his whole body trembled as if a ghost had overtaken it. "Please."

"Drugs," the angel answered, managing to sound both disappointed and elated all at the same time. "I see. You've sunk low, Colonel Mustang. I can't keep endorsing this little addiction of yours."

"I know I shouldn't ask these things of you," Roy admitted, his dignity noticeably taking a hit. He wanted to crawl into a hole, badly, but his desire for that intense, heated rush was stronger. He couldn't have Edward tonight, so he sought an alternative. Anything to keep his imagination from running away with him to memories of carnage.

If it weren't for Jean Havoc and his goddamn interference at the crime scene, he would be in his car, screwing Ed against the back seat, muffling the screams with his hand. A different brand of screaming echoed in his skull; sun-kissed children burning alive, crawling in the sand. He wanted to make them go away for an hour or two, was that so much to ask?

"Do you have any idea what kind of risk you're taking?" Charlie asked. "I was under the impression that you still wanted the Fuhrer-ship. Can't do that with needle-marks all over your arms."

"I know," Roy growled. He had gone over it in his head just the night before; the risks were certainly clear. All of his dreams could shatter in a millisecond if the higher-ups got wind of his meth use. Still. The night he had taken Ed, the drug had completely rewired his brain, unlocked every desire as if his unconsciousness was a Pandora's box. "Please, tell me where I can find more."

"Central is a hub for drug dealers. Xingese opiates, cocaine, methamphetamine on every block. Is it really so difficult to go searching for what you crave, rather than rely on an angel?"

Roy gritted his teeth, tasting salt on his upper lip. "It's not that simple. I can't just go walking down any alley - I'm a state alchemist, for God's sake. If I can't find a dealer I trust, they could tell anyone they wanted, especially if money was involved." An image flashed in his head; Edward, in some dark office, pleasuring a faceless soldier from beneath a desk. "If I was put away, Archer would take what's _mine_-"

"Calm down."

"I am calm," Roy said, and he meant it. Cold sweats and fatigue were the only things that willingly dwelt in his company. "That's the point. Ever since it wore off, I've been a nervous wreck. I haven't been this depressed since Hughes died, and that's saying something." He trailed off. Maybe Charlie was right. Maybe he just needed to go to sleep for a little while.

_Almost_

_"The yellow"  
_

_As if..._

_"The red" _

_It were _

_"Maximum pain" _

_Sleeping  
_

"This is a common reaction," Charlie said softly. He took a short breath. "Let me tell you something. Everyone feels this way after their first time. Soon you'll be back to normal - so long as you abstain. I probably shouldn't have recommended something so strong for your first foray."

"It wasn't strong enough. This isn't alcohol talking; this is me. I genuinely need this, and if I don't get it, I'll kill myself. You're so goddamn omnipotent, and you can't tell-"

"Mustang," Charlie chided, "you trust me, don't you?"

Roy's eyes widened as he thought about the implications. Trust? He was never one to trust. If anything he used, manipulated, but never trusted. He'd withheld things even from Maes, and for good reason. "Yes, of course I do," he said without a second thought.

Charlie laughed. "Liar," he said condescendingly. "But no matter. Roy, seeing as I'm a person you _trust, _I'm going to make you a small deal. This week I'm going to let you work on your goals. Understand? And in return, I shall point you toward what you desire."

Roy nodded, palms sweating uncomfortably. His goals weren't goals in the traditional sense; they involved Ed, and they involved Roy's doing things he wasn't entirely comfortable with. It was concentrated, planned manipulation and control. He was an impulsive person. Planning assault made him feel guilty. "Thank you."

"And Mustang?"

"Yes?"

Charlie grew steadily quieter. "I know what happened at the crime scene tonight. Jean Havoc is growing dangerously fond of Edward, wouldn't you say?" He chuckled. "I have a reason to be concerned. Frank Archer is one thing, but if your own underling starts to make moves, I'm not sure you'll be able to win the fight. Perhaps you should warn the both of them."

Roy's gaze turned cold. Charlie was speaking the truth. He had seen the covert looks, the flirtatious little smirks; the secretive laughs they shared, the small touches when the lieutenant thought no one was looking. Sweet Edward, so naive. "I've trusted Jean for years. It's painful to believe he would do this to me. But I've seen it myself."

"As have I," Charlie sighed. "So let's wrap this up and put it to bed. I want what's best for you, Mustang. Remember that and always remember that. If Jean becomes too much of a problem, we may have to take desperate measures; remember that, too. I'll call tomorrow."

Roy felt suddenly numb as the phone line clicked, and he was once again alone. He thanked the lord for Charlie, putting the receiver back on the hook. He sincerely doubted God even existed, or that Charlie was a literal angel, but what the hell. Charlie was the provider, like a God himself, and that was all he needed to know.

He felt safe. He felt like he had wings.

Now if only he could survive the week, survive until that pretty needle was in his hands. At last. The cravings had set in so damn quickly, even he was surprised. What he wanted, no, needed, was more enticing than sleep and food and oxygen combined, and he allowed himself to be a complete slave to it; because, really, what was the harm?

Yet there was still something even more addicting.

He stole a look at his sleeve, and was pleased to find a gold-colored strand on the cuff. He held it up to the moonlight, mesmerized, trying to garner some hint of the boy's scent. Deep down inside, though he knew that Edward had become the equivalent of property, Roy wanted to imagine it was something more. He felt as if Edward was the other half of his soul; the part that had gone missing in the war.

Edward was so steeped in sin, and so reluctant to acknowledge it, that he didn't deserve to decide anymore. The opposite of his brother, who was a soul in a metal body, Edward was all body, nothing within that constituted to a soul. That had died long ago. He was little more than property, an object, discarded by the insensitive world.

Roy's obsession was becoming a dark, toxic reality, and he was glad in knowing there was absolutely no cure. He intended to break the boy, and by doing so, hide a little piece of his own twisted soul inside of him.

* * *

Edward heard it before he felt it. A sickening crack before pain exploded behind his eyes, making his throat constrict. He bit down on his tongue to prevent himself from crying out. Blood poured from his split lip, shoulder most likely bruised, his head throbbing where it had hit the floor.

Roy took a fistful of his hair and jerked his head up, staring the frightened boy in the eyes. "What happened to you, Edward? All of these little falls are starting to concern me." He slammed the blond's head against the linoleum again, smirking at the reluctant sob that caught in his throat.

"I tripped on the stairs," Ed replied shakily, turning his head on impulse as the man made a sudden movement. A hard blow missed its intended target and struck the floor with a rumble. Roy cringed, pain shooting up from his knuckles towards his wrist, and backhanded Edward with all the force he could accumulate. Ed collapsed on the ground, sliding down against the adjacent wall as a bright red hand print stained his face.

"Next time, don't move," Roy hissed.

Ed hesitated before nodding, and he allowed a hint of a whimper. His disheveled hair hid most of his eyes, but they were still visible, bright and flickering in the shadow of blond. He touched his fingers to his hair, and was relieved to find no evidence of blood.

"This is for yesterday," Roy said contemptuously. "How dare you embarrass me in front of other officers like that?" With his fists clenched at his side, the picture was very nearly comical, but Edward didn't laugh. When Roy raised one, he flinched closer to the green tile of the secluded office, but gasped as the man's military-standard boot met his head.

He laid on the ground, covering his head with his arms, squinting in red-hot pain at the floor. So long as he didn't have to see the man. His eyes stung with long-harbored tears, and although he wanted to cry, he would wait until he was safe in a bathroom or a storage closet. Tears would only turn the bastard on.

His trained ears picked up the sound of a belt unbuckling immediately. "What are you doing?" he asked in a sudden panic, curling into his body like a turtle would its shell. The answer was physical; a sound like wind and then the definitive crack of the belt as it hit his clothed back, making him exhale sharply and bend closer to the ground.

Roy was breathing heavily; Ed heard him grunt a bit with every strike, even as they became faster, harder, more painful, and his own cries and sobs began to intermingle like raindrops in a thunderstorm. When it became too much, he tried to move away. But hands curled in his hair, vulture's claws, and he was held in place, his jacket ripped from his shoulders so that the hard edge of leather could strike his flesh more intimately.

"Please, please stop," he sobbed breathlessly, a cool, wet sensation spreading down his back. "Please."

Roy did stop, and left the boy on the ground momentarily while he meticulously threaded his belt through the appropriate loops of his pants. "I didn't want to do that." His face had turned dark red, and he was still panting, muscles clenching beneath the ripples of his button-down shirt. "You know I didn't _have _to do that."

The man bent down beside him, carefully pulling him up to a sitting position. He shushed him in his ear, kissing his cheek in a tender mockery of affection, and then slid his hand beneath the blond's shirt, feeling around for blood. When there didn't seem to be any but a faint residue of scarlet, he withdrew his hand. "Just keep the jacket on today. No one will notice."

"Is this for taking a ride with Jean?" Ed asked.

Roy smirked and brushed the gold hair from his eyes. "You should have gone with me instead. He only wants you for your body, Ed, can't you see that?" He traced the teen's delicate cheekbone, the faint fingerprint shaped marks fading into light bruise. Ed lowered his head but didn't turn away, freezing up as warm lips touched his gently. Roy gripped the back of his head, falling on top of him so that their bodies were pressed together.

"Colonel," Ed whimpered in confusion.

Roy's response came in the form of his tongue slipping into his mouth. The kiss was long. Passive. Almost silent. The most gentle form of affection Roy had ever offered him; was he meant to appreciate it? Roy changed the angle; bit gently down on his lip, his tongue, left his mouth and planted a chaste kiss on his neck.

A tight feeling enveloped his chest, and Ed stiffened, a dichotomy of heat and horror twisting his insides. A small noise escaped him as Roy ground between his legs, steady, slow, hot and unwarranted. He let his eyes roll up toward the ceiling, listening to the messy sound of lips on his skin and the rustle of cloth and the moans that tickled his ear.

He pushed Roy off, gazing at him with an expression glazed with tears.

Roy considered him for a moment, his trembling hands and jaw. He took his chin in his hand, the boy's small body shivering beneath him. He was hard, and from the feel of things, Edward was getting there, but clearly didn't like the idea. "Don't be so alarmed." He pressed his lips to the boy's warm forehead. He smelled like honey and soap.

"I didn't want that to happen," Ed whined, unable to explain exactly how it made him feel. He recalled having an orgasm the night Mustang raped him, but he had been able to explain it away in the sanctity of his bedroom; the body worked that way in times of stress. But this? How was he meant to explain this? How good it felt, to be touched, but how much he hated it when Mustang touched him.

He drew his knees up to his chest, speaking muffled words into them. "Can I please go?"

"Only if you promise that you'll stop disrespecting me."

"I won't," Ed muttered. He closed his eyes and fought to keep his voice steady. "I won't disrespect you."

Roy smiled tenderly, brushing hair behind the boy's ear. "Then you can go. Just remember that I'll be keeping tabs on you. Don't do anything you'll regret. I will burn you alive if you fuck up again."

Ed did not respond for a second or two after Roy released him. The dark-haired man returned to his desk as though nothing had transpired, now completely ignoring Edward's presence. Ed understood the intentions, and with some pained difficulty stood and walked to the door. He didn't look back, afraid that if he did, the whole scene would repeat itself. He shut the door behind him and rested against it, choking back tears, wanting nothing more than to die in his shame.

This kind of thing shouldn't have mattered to him. He had dealt with much worse things. He had committed much worse crimes. In fact, those crimes were probably part of the reason he let Mustang violate him so harshly, so often. A parasitic worm ate at his brain tissue, a reminder of what he had done to regain his own flesh.

He let Roy hurt him because it was what he deserved. And perhaps on a deeper level, he identified the man as some kind of quasi-god with power beyond his control. A taller, stronger man who had his demons, and also had the power to kill. Edward didn't want to die, not yet. Alphonse was counting on him to catch a murderer.

He forced himself to start walking, going down the empty corridor with his head down. He could hear himself breathing, his sharp steps echoing eerily off the sun-stained walls.

He gripped his right arm protectively. It was one of those days he wished he wasn't required to wear a uniform; he would eagerly trade it in for his old cotton jacket, crimson and warm, with a hood to shield his face and keep him from looking at the world. To keep the world from looking at him.

Thin droplets of rainwater fell from a crack in the ceiling, forming silver puddles and dancing reflections on the wall. He stepped into a shallow pool, the resounding splash convincing him to stop. He took in the fresh scent of the water, trying to forget. Only when his head was as clear as the pool did he continue onward, deliberately kicking at the rippling surface as he saw his own abused and tear streaked face staring back at him.

He pushed open a side door, exiting to an empty courtyard. Rain dribbled onto the dead grass. The sky had opened up and was crying. He shivered and pulled his military jacket closer to his body, dismayed to find it offered little warmth.

"Fullmetal," a familiar, cool voice called.

Ed cringed, but didn't turn toward him. The cold air dried his tears into thin ice. "Colonel Archer. Wasn't expecting you out here. Don't you have subordinates to order around, sir?"

"Oh, what's this? A hint of respect? Now you're polite towards me. I believe that just yesterday," Archer said with a smirk, "you told me to go fuck myself."

"Sorry," Ed muttered, clenching his fist. "Don't know what got into me." He kicked the grass, boot slipping in the mud and squelching when it landed. He heard wet footsteps as the man made to move toward him, and his head began to ache in faint recollection of the blows to his head. He didn't want this explicit perversion to spread to Archer, too.

"Something happen to you, Elric?" Archer asked, getting right to the heart of the matter. He examined Ed's abused body with amusement crossing his pale features. Edward felt suddenly self-conscious, and lowered his head a fraction in an effort to hide the bruises and hand-print. "You look like you fell down three flights of stairs."

"I did," Ed replied darkly. "I didn't think you cared what happened to me anyway. I'm not in your jurisdiction, so what's the point?" He tried to walk away, but Archer gently laid a hand on his shoulder. Ed stiffened, uncomfortable with the contact. The man's fingers were colder than the air around them, and they were spidery. Splaying.

"If he's hurting you," Archer said with feigned concern, "I want to know. I could write a letter to the Fuhrer, perhaps recommend that you be transferred. I do have that kind of power." He trailed his fingertips across Ed's shoulder, smiling as a shudder coursed through him.

"Nothing's happening with Mustang, if that's what you're implying," Ed forced out. He squirmed out of Archer's reach, and faced him with his feet spread firmly apart. "I'm a reckless, stupid kid who can't stay out of trouble. That's it. The man's known me since I was twelve; what kind of creep are you?"

"A sick one, evidently." Frank's dark eyes ran smoothly over his body, from the white shirt he wore under his unbuttoned jacket to the loose military norm pants. On impulse only, he took the teen roughly by the shoulders and shoved him hard against the wall. Ed whimpered as white-hot pain shattered through his brain.

"Let me go, you fucking pervert!" Ed shrieked.

Frank only grinned wider, pushing until he was a wall of a man between Ed and freedom. "I have some ideas that may jump start this case of yours. Seeing as you've gotten absolutely no where, and there's a dead girl on your conscience."

"Why the hell would I ever listen to you?"

"What if it could save a life, Edward? Surely you would put aside our differences for the chance of someone _not _getting chopped to bits."

"Then why don't you just tell me?" Ed demanded, anger burning like hellfire. "Do you want something from me, is that it?"

Archer laughed. "Why, of course not," he said with obvious sarcasm. "What could I ever want with a pretty little thing like you? But of course, you should know everything comes with a price." He licked his lips, and Ed turned his head from the rancid stench of breath. He wished someone, anyone, would show up, save him from what he knew was coming.

"You know I wouldn't have sex with you, ever, even if my life depended on it. So why are you..." Ed trailed off, frustrated as Archer started laughing again. His fist was shaking intensely; it begged to break the man's jaw. "What makes you think I'd consider it?"

"What if I held such crucial information that could lead you straight to the person that murdered your brother? Would you abandon Alphonse so selfishly, Edward? Oh, but that's right. You don't give a damn about him_, _do you? Isn't that why he ended up without a body in the first place?"

"Just tell me what you want with me and I'll give you your goddamn answer," Ed snapped, growing more desperate, the truth already obvious in the lecherous eyes staring back at him. Archer swallowed tears, hopelessly caught in the net of the kid's unrecognized beauty; dark, thick lashes, perfect and angular face, so young and soft.

"I think you know," Archer said, dangerously close and getting closer. He tortured Ed with his own thoughts, watching as the teen squeezed his eyes shut. Turned his head. Tried to make it all go away in that childlike way. "I think you know and I think that one day, I'm going to have you, and you know that deep down."

"No," Ed protested, fighting weak sobs. "I'm not your fuck toy, damn it, I'm not anyone's-"

Archer took a strong hold on Edward's jaw, jerking his head around so that they were eye level. He squeezed his mouth hard, forcing the clenched teeth apart, and tried to shove his tongue well down Ed's throat, relishing the half-muffled scream.

He froze as he heard footsteps on the pavement, coming from around the corner. He growled in disappointment, letting Ed go, and said, "This isn't over. Mustang might have his claws in you now, but mark my words. One day, soon, I'm going to screw you up so badly no one would think of challenging me. Understand?"

* * *

It was pouring in torrents again. Roy's smoldering eyes watched it fall, sparkling like diamonds against the smoky sky. A small rumble of thunder met his ears. It matched his temperament nicely, though his thin smile told the outside world otherwise.

Ed was there, standing near the road outside the military headquarters' gate, a car running idly before him. Red lights glowed, and soft emissions puffed from the exhaust. Second Lieutenant Havoc was speaking to him, water rolling down from a black umbrella. And Edward nodded his head. A rare glimpse of white teeth; so Havoc could please him, make him laugh.

They were both soaked, movements slow as Roy devoured the scene. Edward was far away and yet so close. Roy could almost feel the boy, and his fingers were slightly warm; a phantom of the touch that had happened almost a half hour earlier. He couldn't see the bruises from their distance.

He reluctantly looked away for a brief moment, fishing a striped mint from his pocket. He took off the plastic and threw the mint into his mouth, where he began to taste the sweeter coating with his tongue.

"Don't go with him," he mumbled to himself. "Leave him, you little bitch, leave him."

He bit down hard, cracking the mint as Havoc reached forward, cupping the teen's face in a gloved hand. Ed squirmed for a moment before going still, not breaking eye contact. It was so sickeningly obvious that the boy wasn't going to pull away that Roy nearly threw up. Slut.

"Little fucking whore." He put his hand to the ice-cold glass of the window, as though that might put him in Havoc's place, call Edward back to him. But the boy only glanced down at the pavement, pale skin turning red. Havoc looked grim.

"What are you saying?" Roy wondered aloud, aware that Ed was speaking, though he couldn't tell from the distance about what. "If you tell him anything at all, I'll…"

He took a sharp breath as Ed's head turned, and he was gazing, albeit from afar, into dark honey-colored eyes. He smiled.

"I remember the taste of your tears," he said softly, closing his eyes and painfully recollecting. He felt sluggish, abandoned, tired and above all _deceived. _"They were so saline, so warm. Do I have to hurt you again like I did today? I don't want to. You know I don't want to." He pressed his forehead to the glass, glaring through heavy eyelids. "Please don't…_go_…"

Ed made up his mind in that instant, seeing Roy in the window staring down at him. He knew that if he remained, not taking Havoc's offer, that Roy would find him easily. The rain started pelting down harder, bouncing off the roof, blurring the teen's image as he found his way to the passenger's side of Havoc's car. Roy felt his heart break into a thousand pieces, and yet, he was not surprised. Not in the slightest.

The car stalled for a moment as though the occupants were finishing a conversation, and then it departed, tires splashing in the high water on the roadway.

Roy's hand twitched. It was official. Edward was a whore, and Havoc was a backstabber. They could go suck a dick for all Roy cared. Hell, that was probably what they were planning on doing, correct? Sucking each other off in that car. Ed moaning Jean's name, trembling and flushed.

He bit his own tongue, trembling with loathing and rage. It hurt. And he liked it. Sort of. _The ultimate distraction is pain. _Where had he heard that phrase? There was the vague suspicion he had made it up on the spot. It was a parable, a proverb. Maybe tomorrow, he would take special care to distract his subordinate, become a teacher, and do some good for his soul. He wouldn't even hold back; no, not this time. Tomorrow he would see Edward scream.

He hit the wall hard with a closed fist, letting out a quick tormented yell. He immediately regretted the action, holding his injured hand close to himself as it burned and throbbed. He glared dangerously at the empty office space. He was alone, but he could still detect the people staring at him, pointing at him, whispering behind his back. "Shut up!" he yelled at the walls. "I know I'm nuts, all right? I know it." He sunk against the desk, breathing heavily. "I know…"

Charlie said to work on his goals. There were obstacles in his way that prevented him from accomplishing those goals.

Havoc was a problem. That much was clear. The man was getting too close to Roy's personal property and he didn't like it. Roy saw past his innocent, crystal blue eyes and into the depths of his heart, and he didn't like it.

He dug his nails into the soft skin of his palm, drawing blood. He glared at the green office tile, contemplating, thinking, wondering. He could fix this problem.

He could.

And he would.

* * *

Thick sheets of rain poured downward incessantly, giving the illusion of being underwater, and perhaps to another extreme, drowning. Ed watched the road from the window, feeling more enveloping dreariness with every breath he took. The dark, neon-splattered world seemed to tease him, draw him in to a false sense of security where he would be lulled into black dreams. He didn't want to return there._  
_  
Havoc glanced down at his slumped form, and then turned his attention back to the late-night traffic, a roll of thunder gently going by unnoticed. "You hungry?" he asked after a ponderous minute, putting on an air of indifference.

Ed shot him a dirty look. "Not really."

Havoc nodded. He understood, even in so few words, and certainly wasn't stupid enough to press the matter. He knew that the kid liked control and he would let him have that, however little. Still, the concern lingered, coiling like a snake in his insides and making him sick to his stomach. "How long are you going to keep this up?"

"I don't know," Ed replied uncertainly, as though debating it himself.

Havoc sighed. "When's the last time you ate something, Edward?"

Ed concentrated deeply, delving into his memory. "This morning?" It was more a question than an answer, and he knew it wasn't the whole truth. After Archer's advances had been interrupted by a fellow officer, he had taken a long reprieve in the bathroom, emptying his stomach.

"Are you lying to me?"

"Why would I lie?"

"What if I told you," Havoc said, eyeballing him knowingly, "that I didn't believe you?"

Ed lightly flicked out his tongue, touching his lips with it as he said dryly, "What if I told you that you were being annoying?"

"I'd tell you that maybe you're right, but that doesn't excuse the fact that you're killing yourself. Why do you always get so upset when people draw attention to how sick you are?"

"Because I'm not sick," Ed groaned, moving further away so that he was pressed into the side door. He let his head touch the glass in the window, cool and smooth. It soothed his migraine and psyche fever. "You keep talking but all I hear is bullshit."

"If you keep pushing people away, no one will be able to help you," Havoc mused aloud, slightly peeved. He hid his hurt behind a brittle demeanor. "Jesus, I'm only trying to look out for you. You can't deny that you need all the help you can get."

"Don't bother," Ed snapped quietly, shutting his eyes. "Nothing'll come of it anyway."

"What do you mean?"

"You know why what," Ed said under his breath. "Havoc, karma's having her way with me right now. If you get in the way you'll only end up hurt."

"I dated a chick named Karma once," Havoc said awkwardly. "She was a bitch. Anyway, stop with the self-esteem crap. You're no less lucky than anyone else on this planet. Just accept a hand when it's willing to pull you out-"

Ed held up his arm with an exasperated groan as though it were substantial enough an explanation. "Why do I have this arm?"

Havoc went pale, gripping the steering wheel a bit more tightly. "That is the product of the military, Ed, not you. That wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was," Ed said brokenly, "Even if I didn't want it, it still happened. I smiled. I fucking smiled and laughed when I did it. Stop acting like it was some accident that I couldn't have prevented because it wasn't." He became distant, swallowing the lump in his throat. "They're all dead and it's my fault."

"You can't think that," Havoc argued solemnly. He tried to keep his voice from cracking. "Ed, you know they forced you to do it. You did it for Alphonse, for no other reason. You couldn't stop."

It was a touchy subject they had discussed in private, and illegally at that, without the watchful eye of the government or the Fuhrer. Havoc suspected that he was the only one Edward had ever told personally. The rest of the military, the soldiers who hadn't been in the second uprising, knew mere trivialities of information passed by fragmented word of mouth. It was hard to rely on a thousand versions of the truth.

"Then why didn't I try?"

"I…"

"Why didn't I try?" Ed repeated pleadingly, and Havoc had to answer him. He had to. In the boy's eyes he could see reflections of bloodshed, and death, and things that intimidated grown men in their darkest nightmares. What frightened him the most was that they were dull, sickly, as though the shadows of hell had reached out, dragging them into a deadly fire.

He opened his mouth to speak, but Ed beat him to it. "I can see them in my dreams," Ed whispered, almost to himself. "The shells. Popping. And blood, just pouring, just gushing, out of these little kids, five or six years old. I cut their fucking heads off, Havoc. And I laughed."

Jean listened in silence, driving, swallowing. Wishing that it had never happened, if only because Edward wouldn't have to feel such nightmarish guilt.

"The sand…sometimes I didn't have time…sometimes it took them hours to die because the shell was too thick. And they screamed the whole time. Just melting. This liquid just leaking out of the cracks. Blood and water and tissue. And the transmutation…" He swallowed. "You want to know something?"

Such a question was absurd, and Havoc wanted to refuse to be told. But what kind of a person was he, afraid of the mere retelling of horrors unfolded around a child half his age? "What?" he said at last.

Ed narrowed his eyes, a small, despondent smile forming on his lips. "They didn't have names," he said, clenching his right hand. He forced himself to turn his flushed head, calming himself with shaky breaths. "That's why I don't deserve your goddamn concern or sympathy, okay? The people we killed never existed. No funeral. No memorial. A whole fucking city, just buried under the ashes."

Havoc cleared his throat, tentatively reaching out to touch his arm. Ed jerked away reflexively. "Don't touch me," he muttered, collapsing into stark silence.

They were about to pass the intersection when be made a quick decision, acting solely on instinct. He eased into the right lane, headed for the exit ramp.

Ed looked at him curiously. "What are you doing?"

"I don't care what you said earlier," Havoc said, trying hard not to cry as he forced an edge into his tone. "You're eating something."

"It's really not that…"

"That's an order."

Ed nodded, softly taken aback. "Yes, sir," he replied, dreading the interrogation that was sure to follow.

"And Edward?"

"Yeah?"

"No matter what you say, there are people in this world that love you. We're not going to stop loving you just because you went to hell."

* * *

Havoc furrowed his brow, noticing that the front door of his house had been unlocked. He could have sworn he had bolted it; he always took special care to do so. He shrugged, pulling off his jacket, deciding that maybe he had just been careless. He moved in the dark toward the lamp sitting on a side table, and flipped it on. A dim orange glow filled the tiny living room, causing eerie shadows in the hallway above the staircase.

He set his keys down on the table with a sharp clink, and went up the stairs. He could smell mildew under the carpet as he went higher, and made a mental note to get it replaced.

He reached the top and turned, heading toward the bedroom. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, get some much-needed rest before Hawkeye was breathing down his neck in the morning about paperwork. He was afraid that he wouldn't be able to sleep. After all, the scent of blood was clogging his nose and his head. No matter where he turned, grisly crimes stayed with him, only intensified by the conversation Ed had supplied him with. That little shit. As some form of twisted revenge for making him eat, he'd been sure to give a very detailed account of the second massacre.

He stopped.

His imagination must have been catching up with him, because the smell was very strong here. He couldn't have brought it home, whether on his clothes or in his head exclusively. What he detected was so overpowering that he nearly vomited on the moldy carpeting.

He calmed himself, taking slow steps to where it was less weak. A faint dripping sound entered his ears, and he blamed it immediately on his faulty plumbing. But still, also, he swore on his life that he had fixed that sink ages ago. He froze.

The dripping was getting louder.

The wall switch was turned on in the bathroom, but the nearly burnt bulb above his mirror flickered slightly, casting a yellowish light on the walls. He bit his lip, reaching up to turn the bulb, tightening its position in the electric socket. It didn't appear to have made a difference. He looked nonchalantly down at the sink, and squeamishly realized that it wasn't broken, and that the faucet was dry. No sooner did he come to the conclusion that it must have been the bathtub in need of repair that he glanced into the mirror, and froze.

There was a thick, bulky shadow behind the shower curtain. He wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him, and he tried desperately to come to a logical conclusion.

He knew the answer, even before he went hesitantly to the lime-green curtain, and threw it open.

He fell immediately backwards, cursing, something foul threatening to rise in his throat. Hollow eyes stared back at him, open and dead. The person…the _thing _they belonged to had her mouth wide in a screaming shape, and he could see her red gums, soft and broken. Havoc didn't have to investigate further to understand that every one of her teeth had been ripped out at the root.

But that wasn't all. Did he have to delve further? Did he really fucking have to?

He collapsed, shielding his vision with a shaky hand. There was blood on the shower wall, and on the tub's floor. So much that he had a vague suspicion that it couldn't possibly all belong to the tiny woman lying dead right in front of him. His eyes grazed the messy writing scrawled in the shower, heart sinking low in his chest as he read each word slowly.

"So that's it," he muttered, feeling sick to his stomach. "You son of a bitch…you son of a bitch!" He kicked out in frustration, earning a sharp pain in his leg as it collided with something hard, and then gasped, clutching it for a few seconds.

Unsteadily he rose to his feet, using the wall for support, needing to get to a phone. The police, the military, anyone. He glanced back at the body, afraid somehow that, with such glassy omnipotent eyes, it would become animated and chase him. He would have preferred that, for such occurrences usually indicated you were having a nightmare, and he would have given anything to find out it was just that.

* * *

Two blocks away, Roy was sprawled against a wall on a dark street. He raised a hand-rolled cigarette to his lips, tasting the cheap, weak enhancements within.

"The white serum," he mumbled to no one in particular. "Red, white, blue." He was still speaking, but he couldn't understand the words coming out of his own mouth. His eyes drifted shut, and he laughed, but he didn't know what was so damn funny.

He lay down on the sidewalk, debris and litter passing him in the soft wind. He took another puff, exhaling and watching the smoke drift by, disappearing at last in the air. "Blood's _everywhere_…" he muttered, gazing down the alley. Oh, yes, a _river _of blood, gushing down the road. "It's everywhere. That's it…that's it, that's what's funny…"

He smiled dazedly, glancing once down at his hands. They were stained dark red.


	8. Contact

"I had no reasons to kill that girl," Havoc said in desperation, following the interrogation officer's back with his blue eyes. He was nearly hyperventilating, not wanting to acknowledge just how much trouble he was in. "I didn't even know her."

The officer came to a rest, feet firmly apart, hands clasped behind his back. He was dressed in a black uniform, and there was an attitude of crispness about him that didn't match the hollow vacancy of his cheekbones. He breathed a deep sigh, the sound like rattling chains or a radiator.

"That makes this all the more sick on your part then, doesn't it?"

Havoc had repeated his story half a dozen times. He'd come home to find his doors mysteriously unlocked. After going upstairs, he had discovered a woman's mutilated corpse in his bathtub. He could see why the story sounded kooky, but he stood his ground when it came to his innocence.

"I don't understand why an interrogation is necessary. Shouldn't I be considered the second party victimized or something?"

"Bodies aren't often dumped in stranger's houses, Lieutenant Havoc," the officer replied coolly. Jean narrowed his eyes at the sarcasm. "Besides which, there were prints that matched yours near her body. You can thank Ms. Penny Dale for that. She's a pretty blond, why not cut her up, too?"

"It was _my_ fucking bathroom." Jean was slowly beginning to realize it was pointless to argue. He would just have to wait for Fullmetal. Thank God Edward was a detective in the investigations department or Jean might never get out of there without a new pair of handcuffs. "How long have we been at this, anyway?"

"It's only five-thirty," the officer said, smirking at his watch. "We'll keep at it until we get a substantial explanation. Your story isn't anything short of unusual, and frankly, you should have expected this sort of treatment when you called the police. How stupid are you serial killers nowadays?"

"Forgive me, sir; I wasn't aware that I was supposed to just let her rot there."

The officer turned to face him sharply, and Havoc was somewhat startled by the glare in his expression. "There have been eight deaths now," he said grimly. "We're not taking any chances on silence, especially from uncooperative military men."

There was a faint trace of sadness in the other man's voice. Jean relaxed into the metal chair, staring at the desk before him. He knew he shouldn't be getting into fights with warrant officers, but there was nothing else to be done to defend himself. He felt sorry for the man. Maybe he had a daughter or a wife, and was just afraid that they might become the next victims of the blade.

The door burst open.

Edward stood there, fists clenched tightly and shaking at his side. Havoc noted that he was dressed more casually than normal, with a light blue jacket and dark jeans that clung to his slender frame. His hair was pulled back in a simple tie, frayed and slightly damp as though he had been awakened in the middle of the night and had to walk through the trembling rain.

"Ed, slight problem," Jean said.

"Pretty fucking aware." Ed bounded toward the officer, his expression cold and mirthless. Jean almost flinched. Although the little blond never smiled much, especially of late, it was unusual to see him angry. "All information relating to this case falls under my jurisdiction. You don't have the authority or the right to-"

The officer puffed out his chest with a tart edge of pride. "I was ordered to hold him under suspicion of murder."

"Hold him only, not interrogate him. You're dismissed."

"Surely you're not going to just let him walk free?"

"Well, that's my decision, isn't it?" Ed spat, not bothering to hide his contempt for the auspicious underling. "I'll take it from here. Your services are no longer required." He fell into the chair in front of Havoc, exhausted and not making eye contact. His next sentence was slightly garbled and directed at the officer. "That was an order. If you have a complaint, file it with the district attorney."

The officer glared at him, and Jean stiffened as he detected the subtle threat of flashing eyes, a curling of fingers into a taut fist. But the officer didn't hit Ed or make any move to; instead, he turned away. "Yes, Lieutenant Colonel." He left, the door closing behind him.

Edward propped his elbow on the table and laid his blond head in his hand. His warm gold eyes rested on the smooth corner of the desk, taking in the scratches, the bumps, the bruises, all from previous interrogations that had turned violent. Ed had only encountered two of those, and though the first had shaken him, he knew it was nothing compared to the tightness of his gut now that Jean was in the same room with him.

"What happened?" Ed whispered.

Havoc's lips parted of their own accord. There was something fragile about the way the boy had asked that question. It contrasted so much with his earlier fire that Jean stared at him for a few moments, trying to effectively put a finger on the kid's emotions. Same shining irises the color of hardened amber, same tawny glow of youth that seemed suffocated by an aura of bloodshed memoirs.

"I didn't kill that girl, Ed."

"I know," the teen replied, choking on the same lump as before. "At least I think I know. Just tell me what happened, okay?" He searched Havoc's face for honesty. As much as he trusted the man, as as much as he was sure that he would never hurt another person as long as there was sky, he couldn't help but wonder. The images of Alphonse's body, hanging limply on barbed wire and nail. "Please."

Havoc understood, curiosity a wet spark. Edward couldn't trust anyone anymore. He took a shallow breath, and started talking, blood rushing to his face as he articulated what seemed a rehearsed monologue. "After I dropped you off, I picked up a pack of cigarettes and drove home."

Ed listened quietly, head as empty as a drought-stricken well.

"I thought it smelled funny. Like meat or metal or rust. I figured it was just all in my head. You've got a way with...with words, Edward." Jean attempted a smirk, but it turned into one of the most awkward grimaces he had ever given. "Anyway. I went upstairs, and when I turned the corner, I heard this dripping. I thought it was my plumbing. Then I opened the shower curtain, and..."

He couldn't find the words to describe what he had seen. Combat should have insulated him against death, but in such an intimate setting as his own house, the girl's corpse had contrasted violently against flowered wallpaper. Dead people were just so empty, like all of the love in the world meant absolutely nothing in the end. Corpses didn't feel anything, let alone the despair they'd leave behind.

"Spare me the details. I've seen her body," Edward replied at once, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes closed. "Task force sent for me this morning. She's a prostitute. They've identified her but she doesn't have living relations, so we're waiting for the autopsy to be approved."

"Oh, shit." Jean leaned back, running his fingers through his hair. The girl had been young. And now she was just gone, all because some sick fucker decided he wanted to dance the Charleston. He had to stop thinking like that; lamenting a stranger's loss would get him nowhere, and people died every second. "Am I a person of interest? Do you think I did it?"

Ed did nothing for a long while before deciding that hesitation had worn its welcome thin. "No." His dark golden eyes met Havoc's full on, sucking any and all air from the man's lungs in an encompassing warmth. "At first, I was scared you had; afraid that you'd killed Al. And then I was afraid that something might have happened to you. I'm sorry for doubting you. I know you'd never hurt us."

Whatever Jean had been expecting, it wasn't that. He was oddly warmed by the notion that the boy knew he cared; now the feeling was mutual. But there was something ominous about the way Ed had said 'us.' As if Ed expected to become victim nine.

"Well, if I'm not a suspect...has this particular murder opened up any avenues worth investigating? Or are we back at square one?"

"I've got a possibility. First and foremost let me settle your worries. I'll call the gas station later and see who was on shift when you picked up the cigarettes. That will give you at least a twenty-minute alibi. But for the love of God, lock your doors from now on, will you?" Edward glared. "I'm serious. You give me a fucking heart attack like that again, I'll kill _you._"

Havoc grunted in affirmation. "Trust me, I'm not taking any more chances. Now, what's this other possibility? The new victim fits the pattern, doesn't she? Barbed wire, torture-infliction, blond, female?"

"All of the above. But she also has Xerxian ancestry, like me. We share the same eye color."

Jean froze, thinking on the implications. Edward's genes were rare in the region, and coupled with blond hair, that could only mean the prostitute was explicitly targeted. He doubted the killer just had a fascination with the aesthetic appeal of the golden race; evidently, the Charleston knew about Edward. "He wants you dead."

"I'm hardly female, so dead might be a strong word. He just knows I'm onto him. If he wanted to kill me he would have tried to get me already," Edward assured him, though he sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. At the crime scene, the writing on the wall had told a different story than the one he was peddling Havoc: _Eye See Everything. _

"She was stabbed to death, quickly and violently," Ed continued. "The killer we've been tracking has done it more slowly in the past, severing body parts and treating the crime like an art. While there's some evidence of torture in this latest victim, it's not the kind you would expect. Tooth extraction causes extraordinary amounts of pain, but it's more often used in less-than-humane interrogative practices, not spur of the moment blood lust."

"I don't get it." Havoc decided to ignore the last statement, wondering just how Edward knew about wartime torture methods. He involuntarily shuddered, thinking of the seemingly innocent teenager ripping the fingernails off of insurgents. Shattering kneecaps with an automail fist.

"Hear me out. The killer lured her to your house on purpose. If it was a mistake on his part, which I sincerely doubt, it probably would have been the fault of a mental disorder, or maybe he was using drugs. But I think it's clear he _knew_ what he was doing. He was smart enough to wear gloves, because we can't find any prints besides yours. Suffice to say, he's confused. Can't decide if he's an impulsive sociopath or a macabre artist."

Jean nodded. Multiple personality disorder, or schizophrenia, was definitely a possibility in the Charleston case. "Back to his purposes for leading her to my house. He knows we're close, maybe thinks we care about each other on some level. He wants you to back off."

"He's hurting the people around me to get to me," Ed muttered, clenching his fists. "Hughes' car explosion was no accident, and before that, he murdered Alphonse. Maybe he's wanted me on this case all along. Now he's going after you. Eventually there's going to be no one left to kill."

"I'm not going anywhere," Havoc assured him. "Someone's got to protect you."

"He's been spying on you, idiot." Ed ignored the comment, features shadowed with guilt. "Think about it. He knew how to get into your house. He knew the layout. He knew your schedule."

Havoc nodded, soberly digesting that information. Then, he rapped his knuckles on the table and grinned, rising from his seat and walking around the desk to join the blond. He gently laid a hand on Ed's shoulder, and the teen glanced at it. Havoc wondered just how much pressure it would take to shatter the boy into a thousand pieces; he felt so easily breakable. "Stop thinking about it, just for one day. Come with me."

Ed allowed Havoc to lead him out of the room, dazed. Black spots danced before his eyes, and he tried to maintain himself, not wanting Havoc to know how weak he currently was. When they got outside the interrogation room, he mumbled a few words to his fellow officers, explaining that Jean Havoc was to be released and that he would compile a full assessment of the investigation as soon as possible.

"Are you sure that's wise, Elric?" the chief of police, Martin Creme, said before the blond could vacate the building entirely. "The lieutenant is the biggest lead we have."

"I trust him," Ed said so that only Martin could hear. "I believe in him."

Ed brushed off the flutter of warnings that followed, and indicated for Jean to follow him. As they walked downstairs from the investigations wing, Ed ignored the stabbing pains of hunger that wrecked his stomach; he'd been staving off food for so long, out of habit and out of a weird way of proving he could, that he unconsciously maneuvered Havoc to the lobby while painstakingly avoiding the cafeteria.

Just as they were about to leave the double doors of Central Command, Ed caught a familiar face in the crowd of military men. "You're here early," he said to give his mouth something to do.

Roy Mustang didn't respond, staring Havoc down with a glare that could have turned a man to stone. His uniform had been thrown on in haste. Rain dripped from his hair, dark eyes going from Havoc to Ed and back again. They all three waited with noticeable friction between them, until the lobby's congestion dissipated to more tolerable levels.

"I heard you became ensnared in the murder case this morning," Roy said, hiding his hands in his pockets. His voice was cool, like the frost on the windows. "I came to see if there was anything I could do to assist you, but it seems Fullmetal's beaten me to the chase."

"Worried about me, colonel?" Havoc said. "It was just a little blood. We've seen our fair share."

"Funny how you can massacre a people and earn a medal, only to come home and be chastised if you so much as witness a murder." Roy sighed in agreement. His human side started to show, but before Ed could properly bask in that warmth, the cold, unflinching sociopath returned. "Anyway, where are you two going?"

Havoc drew slightly closer to Ed on instinct, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly. Through the static of rain and a plethora of distracting thoughts, he knew that Ed really didn't want to deal with his commanding officer today. Jean didn't blame him. Yesterday, he had seen the result of the colonel's frayed emotions; bruises on a kid without the guts to say who had done it.

The war had taken its toll on Mustang, and frankly, Jean didn't want to leave Ed alone with him. There wasn't much of a chance the colonel would really lash out or actually hurt him, of course, but Roy did not control his anger well. Jean knew this firsthand.

"Actually, I was just going to take Ed home for some rest." He noticed Roy's fingers twitching together. This was a common tic of Mustang's. After the war, he had done it constantly; in the hospital, in the military dorms, even in bars. It was like Roy was reminding himself he could kill if he had to.

"I'm not sure it's appropriate for him to be in the company of other officers during his leisure time," Roy replied curtly. He shifted his position, lazily locking his gaze on Ed. Jean thought that was slightly predatory, but he wasn't sure why. "There's a long-overdue discussion that needs to take place between us, anyway, Fullmetal. You're welcome to stay with me. I'm your legal parent, after all."

Ed cringed, his shoulders low and his eyes on the floor. "I don't want to burden you."

"Don't say that," Roy said. "You're not a burden, for god's sake, not something to be carried. I have a guest room, if that makes you feel any better."

"Strangely, it doesn't."

Jean watched them interact, and realized that he had become nothing but a spectator. Roy and Ed were like that. They became wrapped up in each other's existence as if the world's population had dropped to two. They were close and yet so antagonistic.

"You probably should move in with me, anyway," the colonel said, licking parched lips. "I'm not sure I'm confident in your ability to live alone."

"The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you have a drug store in your pantry and I don't want to have to find your dead body surrounded by empty bottles. It would kill me if something happened to you."

"Doubtful," Ed snapped.

Roy shook his head impatiently, shooting Havoc a glare. "Just go get in the car, Ed. The lieutenant is a busy man. If you're burdening anyone, it's him."

"He offered me a ride," Ed replied. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Lieutenant Havoc," Roy stated flatly. "I'm going to ask you one more time to step away, or I'll have to report you."

"For what?" Havoc asked, stuttering as he digested the scene before him. Edward's eyes locked on his, and they were wet and pleading. A silent, hidden message coursed between them; the teen was begging for his help. Whatever Roy's intentions, he wanted it to stop.

Roy smiled grimly. "Sexual abuse." He was strangely satisfied as he saw Ed look down; an erection built in his pants as the teen's breathing increased, blind fear radiating from his body.

"What?" Havoc breathed. "Colonel, there's nothing even remotely sexual about why I want to help him." He couldn't help it; he sickened himself as his imagination began to run away with him. Not that it would ever occur to him to act on such fleeting desires. He gritted his teeth.

"That's bullshit, lieutenant. I know you've always had a thing for Fullmetal but I never really thought about why until now." Roy whispered. He cupped Ed's chin gently. "Tell me. How far has it gotten between you? Does he just touch you or has it gotten violent?"

Ed said nothing, and Havoc felt hot nausea bubble in his throat. For some reason words wouldn't come to him either. He couldn't defend himself and Ed was apparently fighting his own demons.

"It's alright, Havoc," Roy whispered dangerously. "I understand that you only wanted to know what it was like, having your own personal fuck toy, and a sixteen year old no less…"

"He's never done anything to me," Ed said desperately. "He wouldn't. Maybe you're the one that's fucked in the head, have some sick fascination with objectifying me."

"Don't blame him entirely, Edward," Roy interjected. He gripped Ed's shoulders tightly. His eyes roamed up and down the teen's body, narrowing. "After all. You've been acting awfully easy lately. Can't find fault in man when their only sin was temptation."

"Fuck you."

Roy slapped him, hard enough to stimulate the tears that had so far been denied release. Ed collapsed to the ground in a sobbing heap, burying himself in his folded arms. Havoc remained where he was, horrified and yet completely unable to move.

"Get up," Roy ordered quietly. "_Get up_." When the command was further disobeyed, he grabbed the blond roughly by a large chunk of his hair, pulling him. "Listen to me when I'm talking to you."

Ed glared at him through his tears. "Look how tough you are, beating on something so _short_." A scream caught in his throat as he was slapped again, one that echoed around the lobby and turned several heads. There were whispers but whispers had no value.

Whatever Fullmetal did, undoubtedly he deserved it.

"Meet me downstairs. If I have to look for you, you're tinder," Roy said lividly. Ed sobbed a reply, almost inaudibly, and then warm fingers found his chin. "Edward," Roy whispered, much quieter and much kinder. "I love you."

Ed cried on the inside, more confused than he had ever been in his whole life. Roy was getting back at him by teaching him the meaning of betrayal. Was that all Havoc was after, then? Had his paranoid thoughts actually held water? He didn't know, and he didn't want to find out the truth. He wrenched out of the dark haired man's grasp, and half ran toward the stairs, wiping stray salt away with the back of his jacket.

"We _told _you never to hit that kid! You promised you'd leave him alone!"

"If you have a problem with how I treat my subordinates, file a complaint and move on, lieutenant!"

He blocked it out.

* * *

"I'm in love with you," Roy said, watching Ed from the corner of his eye as he drove. For the most part the boy had remained obediently quiet, gazing longingly out the window and the rain-spattered streets. He didn't acknowledge being spoken to. He pressed himself against the door, trying not to fall asleep against cold glass.

Roy tried again, wanting to hear words. Wanting - wanting to see emotion. Ed was all he wanted, really, and that didn't seem such a heavy thing to ask for. "I mean it when I say it. I know you don't like hearing it. It makes you feel vulnerable, too open. But that's exactly why I need to protect you from men like him."

"You 'protect' me from every man that speaks to me. I can't so much as go to work without you hovering over my shoulder," Edward mumbled. He stared at the landscape, the cold mist that cloaked the trees. He had only ever been to Roy's house a few times before, and Roy hoped that would be an advantage later on.

Ed would try to leave, Roy predicted; that would be difficult if he didn't know the way.

"Frank Archer is a sadistic _creep _who would rape you just to prove that he could. If he couldn't hold you down, he would try other things, and I get nightmares just thinking about it." This was true. He did often have dark dreams, beginning with screams and ending with the weak protests of strangulation. Roy felt, deep down, that Archer's lust was not just for sex; the bastard thirsted for blood, too.

"You don't know that," Ed said, but Roy detected fear. He could smell it. Could see it in the way Ed's fingers shook and inched to the handle of the door, never quite garnering the strength to open it and jump out of the moving car. "Besides, Havoc isn't a creep. He's your subordinate and he's a good guy."

Roy just grunted in response. "Good men do bad things, Fullmetal."

"Right. And I suppose you're a better man than him?" Ed was getting quite the little mouth on him. "Last time I checked, he wasn't screwing me unconscious in my own fucking bed."

Roy shook his head, but said nothing.

"Just going to ignore it...course you're going to ignore it..." Ed said, tears in his voice. "You're just going to pretend I don't even have feelings to hurt. I'm nothing to you, aren't I? I never was."

"Don't be so dramatic, Fullmetal." Roy smirked, glancing at him in the mirror. The boy was in the back seat, arms folded in rebellion, his gold eyes taking in the pavement and acting as twin stars in the darkness. He was beautiful. "I'm only giving you what you want. Time off, so that you can rest."

There was something bitter about the way he had said that. Ed shook his head, identifying the empty streets as unfamiliar. "Colonel, I doubt that you'd just let me take a nap on your couch, if you get my meaning."

Roy smiled. "And your point?"

In a flash of anger, Ed's fists flew to either side and hit the seat hard. "You dumb fuck. You're really going to do that after Havoc saw you-"

"So let him know." Roy said with a sly grin. Ed was slightly chilled. "I've had a word with the lieutenant, and trust me...he won't be taking you away from me any time soon. He has his own troubles to worry about. He doesn't want you."

"That's not true." Tears were stinging his eyes again.

Roy looked guiltily away. "Let it out."

For once, Ed was glad to obey, but he wasn't willing to give Roy the satisfaction of seeing him cry again. So instead, he kept his eyes pressed tightly shut and his mouth clamped to avoid making a sound. "I hate you." He muttered, and the brief bit of speech made controlling his emotions all the more difficult. "I fucking hate you!" He was trapped again. Time passed slowly and yet all too quickly. He wanted to run...wanted to hide. But he had no one and no where to go to. He was alone.

Roy was holding him, quieting his sobs and stroking the back of his head. The car was still; Ed realized they must have stopped long ago, though he couldn't remember when. He allowed the interaction, at least glad to be held by someone for once. To let someone else make the nightmares go away.

"I've got you," Roy said quietly, making sure that his grip was tight but not too tight. If he couldn't get the kid to come by force, maybe he could do it with a little subtle manipulation. "I've got you..."

He saw his reflection in the windshield. His groggy blank eyes. The look of evil that surrounded him, the crown of thorns on his head. And then Edward, in his arms, so angelic, so lovely, so warm. Crying. And for some reason - some inescapable reason - he knew that once he got the kid in the house, the charade would end. The lion wouldn't lay with the lamb. He'd knock him out. He'd tie him up.

He'd do whatever it took to break him...

Blood ran hot and thick and dark in his veins as he brushed a single, golden thread behind the teen's ear. The monster was unleashed. He barely registered Ed's frantically widening eyes, arms locking tight around his body. He shoved his hand over Ed's mouth, looking out the car windows for any neighbors. Ed started screaming.

With some difficulty, Roy managed to get the blond out of the car and into the house, but there was a lot of kicking and biting in between. Just before they got in the door, Ed tried dragging himself to the ground, causing a whole scene. Roy pulled on his hair, kicking him, just trying to get him to_ shut the fuck up_. "Damn it, stop this. Stop it now. Or by the time we get inside, I'm going to say fuck it, and light you the fuck on fire."

Ed sobbed, tears wet against Roy's hand. He let his body go limp, letting Roy half-drag him into the house.

The dark-haired man got him in the bedroom, and threw him down on the bed. Ed sprawled there on his back, eyes terrified and wide.

"Please, please don't do this again, please..."

Roy checked all of the curtains and shades, making sure they covered the windows. Then he turned back to his subordinate. Ed was chewing the tips of his fingers, visibly shaking with a constant stream of tears dripping down his face. He pulled his hand away as Roy reached forward, taking hold of his hair and ripping the tie from it. Letting it all fall across his shoulders.

"Mustang..." Ed whispered as the man ran fingers through his hair. "Mustang. I'm going to throw up. I'm going to be sick."

"No, you won't. Just relax."

Roy could tell he was trying. The blond closed his eyes and trembled, like he was waiting out a hurricane before it had even struck.


	9. Morphine

Havoc heard sirens wailing. Dark stars glittered overhead; he could see them if he looked through the windshield. The car was filled with the harsh ashy scent of smoke. Thick clouds of it hung loosely in the air, and the cigarette it came from lay poised, burning brightly in the blackness, within his white and shaking fingertips. He heaved a deep sigh, willing himself to keep his attention bent on the pavement and the silence of his motor.

Nonchalantly, he looked down at the pack of cigarettes he had purchased at a gas station that very night. It was half-empty. Or half full. He wasn't feeling very optimistic tonight, so he supposed he would go with the former. What awaited him in the intensive care unit was a closed can of worms he did not want to investigate, and yet he wouldn't fight it.

Groaning, he put the cigarette out in the ashtray compartment, and then put a hand to the cold metal of the door handle. He didn't want to open it. How could he? Doing so would force him to start walking, out of the lot and into the sterilized cold of the hospital building. He wasn't even sure why he was there, though he had his suspicions, and he had a feeling he might be committing murder that night.

"Edward," he muttered, the name falling from his lips like a curse and a prayer. He scrubbed his hands over his face. He had gotten a phone call, one he hadn't been expecting, from a nurse who said his son was in the hospital after suffering from a concussion. At first his heart had stopped cold in his chest, because he hadn't seen his son in years, but after further investigation he realized Edward had lied in an attempt to seek help.

He was with Mustang, a "Good Samaritan" in the words of the ICU secretary, who claimed the colonel had called an ambulance after witnessing Ed fall down a flight of stairs in his apartment complex. Edward had no identification, and no records in the civilian registry, so the hospital pinned him as a runaway youth. It had been years since anyone had recognized the Fullmetal Alchemist for what he was, and he never attempted to remedy it.

Jean somehow suspected that Roy had gotten angry, had been unable to control his emotions, and had somehow misconstrued the details of Ed's concussion to avoid punishment. There was no doubt in his mind that Mustang had hurt him intentionally, because that morning in the lobby of Central Command, he had smelled the fury and had witnessed the brutality firsthand. What angered him was that the colonel had promised long ago to stop.

There had been a pact.

In the end, Jean's feet hit the pavement, and his eyes roamed up toward the ten story medical complex before him. His stomach twisted as bright neon letters met his eyes, and he scratched at the back of his head, dreading the many confrontations soon to follow. There were three places he avoided with a passion: graveyards, churches, and hospitals. All three reminded him of death. And death scared the living fuck out of him, though he would never admit that.

* * *

Her eyes were soft green, like jade. Even with his own half-open, Edward could tell she was kind, wouldn't do him any harm. Perhaps that was why he was letting her touch him, tangle delicate fingers beneath his hair to feel for irregularities. He was for the most part unmoving, displaying no emotion as he listened to the sounds of silence, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed as she treated superficial cuts.

His brain felt like it was trying to squeeze out of his skull. It had taken on a life of its own and throbbed and pulsed, dragging the tang of vomit up his throat. He kept swallowing the sour taste back, but it was persistent, robbing him of his energy and nearly convincing him to make a run for the bathroom, wherever it was. He knew he was in the intensive care unit from the lack of privacy, the drawn curtain just barely qualifying as a room.

"Do you remember anything at all about what happened?" the nurse questioned, betraying no emotional conflict. Her face was very pretty, befitting of her tiny body and hands that worked well despite their softness. She reminded him of Gracia Hughes, though while Gracia smelled of warmth and home-cooked meals, the nurse carried a scent of bitter medicine.

He bit down on his swollen lips, remembering the gnash of teeth and the suction of Mustang's mouth. The man stood near the window, having a staring contest with the darkened glass and the beads of light outside it. His face was grim and his innocence was starkly convincing, but Ed knew it was a rouse. Unfortunately he could not say the same for the hospital staff.

"The lights in the complex are always so dim," Ed said, his voice monotonous. This was the story he and Mustang had agreed upon. Dazed white and black shapes danced in front of his irises, but every time he tried to turn away, they followed like prints. "I don't really remember how it happened, but next thing I knew, I was in here. Everything in between that's a blank."

He saw her eye the dark, shackling bruises around his pale wrists, and the red scrape of rope burn. He almost wanted her to interrogate him, almost wanted her to make him admit that he'd been tied up and helpless as the colonel fucked him over and over and over again.

"I'm not sure if some of these wounds qualify as resulting from a fall down the stairs," she said distractedly. She shined a light in his eyes. He blinked as the pain in his head intensified, going from numb pulsation to shrieking protest.

"I don't remember how those happened," he said, hoping that the toneless denial would appease her. The conversation had stimulated a flood of confused memories. Lying on the ground, attempting to protect his head as he was beaten without mercy. Things got fuzzy after that. He really didn't recall waking up until he had actually arrived here in the bed.

Ed squirmed where he sat, sensitive to the light. He was still in his casual clothes, a sky-blue jacket that contrasted against the wheat of his hair, and tight jeans. His wounds weren't too serious, so he wasn't required to change into a gown. That was fine, but he could feel blood and dried semen caked on his thighs and between his legs. He was disgusting.

He looked at Roy, still distracted, and lowered his head. "If Jean - if my dad doesn't come, can I stay here?" He was grasping at straws, and he saw Roy stiffen up predictably. He knew the man was hoping to take him home tonight, back to the misery of blood-soaked fever. This was just a precaution, a way to keep his fuck-toy alive. Ed would do anything to struggle away from a hot, hard dick tonight.

"You don't need to, honey. Just a concussion. We'll schedule you for an MRI scan if your insurance covers it, and if you feel dizzy or pass out, you can always come back. Look at me," she commanded gently, tilting his head up toward her to examine pupil size. "What's your level of pain, one to ten?"

He groaned. "Five. Aspirin fixes anything. Give me some damn aspirin."

She smiled warmly back at him, and he knew that she wasn't going to listen to him, because she saw him as a kid. She had no idea what he had been through, no concept of what horror he had seen. Suddenly Ed wanted to coil and strike like a snake, bleed the bitch out for ignoring his injuries and his subtle glances and his attempt to protect himself.

"I'll see what I can do," she lied, standing with a soft ruffle of her scrubs brushing. She set the tray of gauze and disinfectant on the side table, and made to leave the room. Ed sighed as she went, begrudgingly counting down the remaining seconds of his life with closed eyelids.

As the nurse passed, Roy gently caught her arm. They whispered back and forth to each other; probably about him, Ed noted with growing dread. All he managed to catch were the words "clotting," "ibuprofen," and "supervision." Ed swore Roy slipped her money, and she froze before continuing out the door as though nothing had transpired.

"You know," Roy said softly, throat raw like he had been crying, "I think she was right. You don't look so bad." He surveyed the bruises and Ed's darkened, hurt eyes, the shadow of memory making Ed swallow. "Let me take you home."

"Why?" Ed was sickened at how timid he sounded. "So you can do me again?" He received no reply and took it as confirmation. He realized that it was exactly where Mustang's thoughts bounded. He pulled his knees up against his chest, staring at the wall and taking slow, shallow breaths. The smell of sex was more potent when his senses were heightened.

Roy cleared his throat. "So this is what I get? Sarcasm? No, I wasn't planning on 'doing you,' you selfish bitch. I'm taking care of you, aren't I? Mending your wounds." Ed grimaced as the image of a canary with broken wings surfaced. Roy cared for it, fed it and watered it, only to break its limbs every time it healed itself.

Ed shook his head, refusing to listen before the idea of going home with him became appealing. Roy had a certain way of reasoning things out, making them seem smaller than they really were, and Ed didn't want to lose any of the distrust he had left. He stiffened uncontrollably as Roy touched his shoulder in what one might have thought was a comforting gesture, had they been ignorant.

"Don't touch me," Ed said, stomach twisting up.

"It doesn't hurt, does it? If you relaxed more, things would be less painful," Roy muttered gently, bending so that they were eye level. He surveyed the teen's face, the lack of visible damage. Ed knew that Roy had avoided his face on purpose during the beating, either to preserve him or to keep people from reaching the right conclusion.

He flinched as Roy's fingers lightly brushed his feverish skin, skimming beneath a limp lock of hair. A cooler something slipped from his golden eyes down Roy's palm. It trickled down the man's wrist and into his shirtsleeve where it evaporated, forgotten, like so many other dark and pointless things.

"I relaxed earlier," Ed said softly as Roy lingered, hardly breathing, near his hairline. He winced as a soft kiss brushed his forehead. He hated these moments, the quiet ones, the limpid ones, because they fooled him into believing that Mustang really did care about him. Deeply, in fact. "I did exactly what you told me to and you hurt me anyway."

"Do you feel that sick?" Roy responded sharply, interrupting the tangent. "I don't want you to stay here."

"Why the hell should I care what you-" Ed bit his tongue before he finished the sentence, not wanting to be murdered in the middle of a hospital ward. He let himself become vulnerable, because with Mustang that was the key to his sympathies. Letting him know he was in control. "I'm begging you. I'm so, so tired. I'm sick. I don't wanna go with you. _Please_."

"I just don't want to let you go, not now, not ever," Roy muttered thoughtfully, taking Ed's hand and holding it to his lips. His dark eyes glittered with unspoken lusts. "When I'm without you I feel like I'm coming down from a high, when I'm with you I feel like I can make you pure again; make _us _pure again. I can't save your soul if you won't let me touch you. You want to be innocent, don't you?"

Ed shivered at those ramblings. Make them pure again? That was impossible, and violent sex was not the course to get there. He could never become innocent, not unless he lost his memory or died or somehow found a time machine. But he didn't disagree, didn't say anything - was far more possessed by the slimy wet feel of Roy's mouth around his fingertips, the hungry moans the man swallowed.

"If someone comes in here…and you're doing something you shouldn't, they'll…" He cut himself off. Mustang's head had gone into that vividly dangerous territory of no return. Once the mode began, it was impossible to stop until climax or outside interruption. Ed laid back, terrified by the predatory gaze sweeping his body, terrified by the sweep of a hand through his hair.

It made him feel hot and dirty and wrong, like stewing in a landfill. The weight on the bed doubled as Roy pinned him down, a parody of play. Hands grasped his wrists and held them at either side of his head, tight and painful and constricting. Roy smiled into his hair as he grimaced, body arching in an attempt at escape.

"Hold still, Fullmetal," Roy whispered, his voice sticky and sweet like the richest of honeys. Ed listened, going obediently still, because those strong, hot hands were dangerous and close to his throat. When Roy bent his head to suck and lap at his neck, he squirmed briefly and then settled for staring at the ceiling, tears of repulsion burning his eyes.

He winced as teeth sunk into his skin. The heavy weight over him made it hard to breathe, and despite the cold conditioning, Ed felt like he was on fire. When Roy bit him again, he flinched and arched up, cursing, but fell to a whimpering standstill when his abdomen brushed the prominent erection in Mustang's trousers.

The colonel just groaned, kissing him hard, hands abandoning wrists to tangle in sweat-damp blond hair. Ed tried to hit him, push him off, but that pissed the hell out of him. Ed saw the backhanded slap coming, but that didn't stop the sting and cold shock when it landed. Frustration and misery manifested themselves in fresh tears.

"Just _stop_!" he said.

"Stop what?" Roy asked sharply. He slapped him again, hard enough to make his head jerk to the side. The resulting sobs seemed to satisfy the prick, so Ed decided to keep at it; crying alleviated some of the pain. Maybe Mustang got off on it. The crying.

He pressed his fingers to his lips as Roy clamored off him, his body taut and shaking. "Stop," he said. "Please stop." His head blistered in pain. Sobs broke from his throat and with those cries came heady nausea. If he removed his hand from his mouth, he knew vomit would spill out all over the clean linoleum. "Please."

Roy grabbed a fistful of hair, jerked his head back. Was yelling in his face and all he could do was sit there and take it. "I'm not going to stop, so you may as well keep that pretty fucking mouth shut. I'm absolutely exhausted from your bullshit, Fullmetal. You look at me like that and expect me not to act on it?"

"Look at you like _what_?"

That was the wrong thing to say. Ed shrieked, first against air and then Mustang's hand, but the man's fist kept coming down on him; head, shoulders, stomach, anywhere he could land a hit. Ed made to cry out as Roy tried prying his lips apart, but the scream was cut off by a voice in the doorway.

"Get the fuck off of him, Mustang!"

Ed's eyes fluttered shut as he recognized the speaker, and he sobbed quietly in relief as Jean pulled the colonel off him and thrust him against a wall. The sound of hard bone on bone crunched through the air as Havoc punched him square in the jaw, not breaking it, but putting the owner in a lot of pain.

"You son of a bitch, the fuck was that about?" Jean glared Mustang down, grasping the expressionless man by the collar of his shirt. Roy was the picture of calm even as a dark bruise flowered on his face. "Answer me, you sick piece of shit! You like beating on kids, huh?"

"Assaulting an officer, Havoc?"

"Explain or I'll break that officer's neck!" Havoc demanded, shoving him harder against the wall. Roy didn't struggle, but didn't look him in the eye, either. "What else were you gonna do to him, huh? You gonna fucking feel him up too, you fucking pervert?"

Ed clutched himself, the heat having seeped out of the room and leaving him feeling cold and vulnerable. His face was wet and sticky with salt, but he didn't want Jean to see him cry. He kept his sobs locked up in his throat, choking on them, breaths quick and erratic.

"I completely understand why you came to the wrong conclusion just now," Roy said hurriedly, clearly in the midst of a lie. Ed could see it in his eyes. "Fullmetal attacked me. The concussion must have messed with his head - he didn't recognize me, I had no choice but to-"

"But to what?" Jean yelled. "Hold him down and shove your tongue down his throat? You think that's supposed to make him recognize you, you disgusting bastard?"

"I did nothing of the sort." Roy closed his eyes, calm and deadpan. "Perhaps you're the one who is the lecher in this case. You're the one who lingers around behind him like a lost puppy, the one who believes I'm always out to molest him. Are these fantasies of yours, lieutenant?"

Jean let him go, as if he had burned him. "Fantasies?" he whispered incredulously. Ed grit his teeth as another batch of tears trickled down his face, staining his jacket darker blue. "I don't think of him like that. He's just a kid."

"It's not like you've never committed a crime before," Roy said knowingly, a smirk on his face. Ed knew that smirk, had been fucked beneath that smirk, cried and begged for it to disappear. It wasn't so much to ask for the man not to smile while he raped him.

"On your little carpools," Roy continued, amused, "do you touch him? Make him suck you off while you drive, his head between your legs? Bet you like that. Having him there, vulnerable."

Ed lowered his head, trembling at that thought. Roy was clearly speaking from experience even if Jean didn't realize it, and although Ed liked the lieutenant a lot more than the colonel, if Jean started hurting him like Roy did, he would crack. Shattered glass.

"Shut your goddamn mouth!" Havoc bellowed, hands clenched into tight fists. "I'd never touch him. I'd never hit him, or make him do things just because I could, because I'm not you. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. You just shut up or I'll call the police."

"For what? Taking him to the hospital, caring for him, providing shelter for him and his brother for all these years? Honestly, don't you have some nineteen year old hooker to knock up?"

Havoc froze, giving him a blank stare. His expression turned to one of disgust as Roy's underlying meaning hit him full force, and he released the colonel with a final shove before pacing to the other side of the room. His fingers were pressed against his lips in contemplation.

It was very quiet.

Finally, Havoc spoke up. "I'm taking him with me tonight. If he needs supervision, it's not gonna be under your watch. He's concussed and I'm not gonna risk you flying off the handle and hitting him again."

Edward was passive to his fate being discussed so explicitly by adult men he barely knew or trusted. That had been happening for a while now. They told him to shoot a gun, he shot a gun. Told him to suck cock, he sucked cock. Told him to stay, he stayed. Good dog.

Roy sighed in exasperation, parental tenderness briefly appearing. It made Ed sick. "Fine. He needs ibuprofen, aspirin. Something to keep the pain down. When he's back to normal, you bring him back to headquarters, and then I want you to keep your goddamn mouth shut about what you saw here. Got it?"

Jean's fingers twitched. "Got it."

Ed whined at that, eyes snapping to Jean, but the blond man wasn't looking at him. "What? That's it, you're not even going to tell Hawkeye that he's been beating the shit out of me?" The outburst wasn't supposed to happen, but it did, and once the trembling words were out he didn't regret them. Even if Roy did look like he wanted to murder him.

"I can't, Ed," Jean said, still looking away. "There's a lot of things going on here, things you don't understand. If I told Hawkeye all she would do is get pissed and then the colonel's career would be over. You don't want that, do you?"

Ed shook his head, disbelieving. "_Fuck _his career, if you had any idea..." He trailed off, knowing that it wouldn't make a goddamn difference what he said. He could describe in vivid detail exactly what Mustang had done to him and Jean would probably just walk away. As usual. Like everyone else.

* * *

"So. This is where I live," Havoc said, nostrils flaring as heavy amounts of disinfectant violated them. It covered up the stench of death quite nicely. "It's small, but it's home."

Out of human curiosity, his eyes darted toward the darkened bathroom upstairs. He felt childishly at ease in knowing he wasn't the only one who would have to remember the dead body lying there only a day before. He flipped on the lamp.

"Small and cramped is my style," Edward replied, hugging his body with his arms as though freezing. Havoc nonchalantly noted that the temperature of his home was about ninety degrees, but shrugged the thought away. It was mid-March, and it was quite cold outside. He shut the door.

"Do you want anything to eat? Are you hungry at all?"

Ed shook his head, attention on a line of silver-framed photographs. They were all hanging on the staircase wall, some in black and white and others in bright colors. He smiled to himself, curiously looking at a picture of what he assumed to be a younger Jean Havoc, a purple graduation cap on his head and two people (his parents?) beside him. He seemed happier.

"Could I just have a glass of water, if that's okay?"

Jean nodded. He made his way to the kitchen, turned on the light, and set the plastic bag he was holding on the table. He shrugged off his coat before ripping the bag open, pulling out two cases of ultra-lights. They would probably last him until Monday. He opened one case and produced a single pack, shoving it in the pocket of his jeans.

"I'm probably gonna be keeping you here for a few days," Jean said. "That okay with you?"

"Perfect," Ed replied. "I can't go back to my house right now. Too many bad memories. And I'd rather die than board with Mustang." He swayed slightly, blacking out for an instant. He needed to sit down.

"I've got one bed, so you get the couch," Havoc said as he walked into the living room, holding a glass of ice water. He set it on the side table. "It's comfortable even if it looks like shit. Take your painkillers, all right? They're in the grocery bag on the kitchen table. Hang on a second. I'll be right back."

At Ed's nod, he started up the stairs. Somehow he managed to will himself past the bathroom at the top without vomiting, and turned into his bedroom. It was relatively small, just a mattress on the floor with a plastic fan whirring softly beside it. He opened the bottom drawer of his bureau, and pulled out a thick blanket. It smelled like cigarettes, but then again, everything in his house smelled like cigarettes. No complaints.

He grabbed an extra pillow from his bed, and thumped down the stairs again. His pace increased, like there was something ghostly chasing him. "M'kay, listen, if you find any holes in this thing it's probably from a cigar three yea-" He stopped mid sentence.

Edward was always two steps ahead of him.

Quietly, he approached the passed-out blonde on his sofa and gently tucked the pillow beneath his head, wary of the concussion he had received. He spread the blanket over his shivering body, wondering if it would be thick enough.

"Damn, kid," he whispered. "You just attract trouble, don't you?"

He hesitated, and then briefly stroked the teen's head, knowing there was no way in hell Ed would let him do so if he were conscious. And with that, he turned off the light.

* * *

_"No!"_

Havoc's eyes shot open. He had a brief what-the-fuck moment where he didn't understand who, where, or what he was. He reminded himself that he was Jean Havoc, there was a roof over his head, and he was a human being. He hoped. Once that was established, he turned his groggy eyes toward the ajar door, and listened, only vaguely realizing that he had heard someone shriek.

"_No_! No, you can't make me!_ I'll kill myself_!"

He froze, the inhuman terror of the screaming turning his blood cold, and then bolted from the mattress. He rushed out the door and down the steps in a mad rush, stopping only when he realized that Edward wasn't in any immediate danger and was just having a rather vivid nightmare.

The boy was thrashing and twisting in the blankets, screaming as if white-hot knives had been jabbed through his eye sockets. It was pained, animal-like, indescribable in its intensity. Jean stood there, shell-shocked, for what felt like an eternity. He had no idea how to cope with this kind of trauma. He had no idea how to even go about waking the kid up, or even if he should.

Edward's body jerked as far as it was able at the touch, and Jean could hear him muttering between the screams. A language that Jean had only ever heard in passing. It was cloaked in taboo, spiced and hot and dangerous. Ishballan. Sweat dripped down his forehead in warm trails, and yet his skin had taken on the color of pale, dead leaves in autumn. He was clammy.

"Ed, it's alright. You're alright." Jean tried to shake him awake, but Ed's face just screwed up and he started sobbing, the foreign words intermingling and repetitive. One word kept coming back, over and over, and Jean couldn't help but think that it was an apology.

"_Suffra, suffra..._no, no, _no_! Alphonse, _just fucking do it_!"

"That's right, back to English," Havoc murmured soothingly, wondering just what Al had to do with anything. He tried coaxing to get a proper explanation, taking a gentle grip on Ed's shoulders; the teen's very bone structure reminded him of a documentary he had once seen on birds. Apparently, theirs were hollow. Ed felt lighter than anything he had ever touched. Now he wondered if shaking the boy would shatter him completely.

"Kill me, Alphonse," Ed moaned under his breath. Havoc paused in his attempts on jerking him awake, and merely listened, frightened and entranced by the unconscious admissions. "Colonel can't protect us no more. Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me too..._murder_ me..."

"Edward, I'm ordering you to wake the hell up." Havoc commanded, knowing his words were useless. He squeezed Ed's arm, tight, and then to his shock the teen's body went limp. He was still for a while, lethargic, before dark gold eyes opened weakly. Havoc brushed sticky bangs to the side, cradling his head as if it were a delicate object. "You were screaming in your sleep."

"Lieutenant Havoc?" Ed whispered, voice cracking. His eyes strayed to the ceiling fan, unfocused and wet. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Havoc asked, checking his temperature with the back of his hand. Cold sweat dampened it.

"For being so stupid."

"Kid, you're not being stupid. You had a bad dream."

Ed's lips broke into a pained smile. "I'm not sorry about that," he responded. The answer sent chills down Havoc's spine. It was so ambiguous, so unsettling. And Edward seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.

"Then what are you sorry for?"

Ed sat up quickly, startling Havoc away. The teen stayed that way for a long while, shivering with fever and cold sweat. Then without warning, his hand flew to the bottle of ibuprofen on the coffee table. Before Havoc could even think of stopping him, he had unscrewed the lid in a flash.

"No!" Havoc yelled, suddenly very aware of what the boy was planning on doing. He rushed forward, knocking the bottle away with a sharp crack and the sound of hundreds of pills hitting the floor. He grabbed Ed roughly by the shoulders. "What the hell are you thinking? What the hell would possess you to-"

Ed's eyes were drawn to the medicine bottle, dull and scared. He struggled, snakelike, in Jean's arms. "No, let me go! Please!"

Havoc tightened his grip as Ed lunged forward, trying to break free. He was surprised at how strong the boy could be when determined. "That is not the way you're going to die, Edward Elric! Do you fucking understand me? You've been through way too goddamn much for a bottle of fucking pain pills to snuff you out!"

"No, you don't understand, I have a headache, I need it!" Ed screamed through his blur-eyed confusion. Jean felt the sting of tears and an ache in his heart. "Please, let me make it stop!"

Havoc pulled the struggling blonde against his chest, ignoring the way he kicked at him and starting sputtering random curse words in multiple languages, Xingese and Ishballan the most prominent and identifiable. Eventually Edward's screaming faded into hysterical sobbing, and that too into desperate whimpers. He went from a bucking horse to a child in just a moment of breath.

"It's alright," Jean said, feeling quite out of place and inadequate. "You're safe with me. You don't have to let those memories rule, you Ed. You don't have to let those souls drag you down."

"It's not me I'm worried about," Ed said with some difficulty, voice breaking every other second. "I killed a lot of people, you don't even know, I killed a _lot _of people. I shouldn't be alive. They should have found a way to bring me down but they didn't and now they're crawling all over me, asking me why - asking me why I slaughtered them when they were helpless, defenseless."

"I know," Havoc murmured, stroking the back of his head. By now they were both on their knees, the rough carpeting stinging their skin, and Ed's cries filling the small space in ways that Havoc could never fathom. "I know you did, baby. But you were just the tool, always remember that. You're as much of a murderer as a gun is. That's what soldiers do, sweetheart, they drop bombs, they kill people."

"It wasn't just another war. It was genocide," Ed replied, breaking away from the hold. His tear filled eyes pierced into Jean's icy-blue ones. "We treated them like less than meat. I was always, _always _covered in blood, sun up to sun down, they never let me shower, they just made me kill again and again and again until I just wouldn't do it anymore. And then they still made me."

"It was awful," Havoc agreed. He wondered what Ed meant when he said they made him kill, made him destroy. "But the genocide's over now, kid. It's done with. You're alive and you can get a fresh start, pretend it never happened. I know you'll never be able to forget. I know you wanna die. But I'd never forgive you if you killed yourself," he said gently, pulling him back into an embrace. "You'd be taking something away from everyone."

"Who?" Ed asked, voice muffled in his shoulder. "I have no one. Everyone I love is dead. _Everyone _I love is dead."

"You idiot."

"Don't mention the Rockbells. The blood was too much. They hate me and they wish I'd just drop dead."

"I'm talking about me, alright? I care about you. Hawkeye cares about you. Everyone in our command would protect you even if it meant they got killed." He bit his lip as he thought about Roy Mustang, and decided that although it was disturbingly apparent how deep the man's concern was, it wasn't right to mention for the time being. "Bad things have happened to you. But that doesn't mean you're a bad person."

Ed nodded, finding the words to be rational enough. But words were hardly the antidote to his problems. "Havoc," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. I know you care. But I feel that if you knew the real me - if you had seen me actually doing what I did - you wouldn't. You'd be scared of me. You might even want to kill me. You would've let me take those pills. And I would've done it."

Jean stroked his hair, uncomfortable with the reel of tape playing in his mind. Edward, so beautiful and so terrible, ripping innocents to shreds with a smile on his blood-streaked face. It corroded his guts, but didn't make him hate the kid. It was just sad. Just really, really sad.

"I wish I could help you," he said, ignoring the prickle of tears. "But I really don't know what to do for you."

Ed shrugged, nuzzling closer. "You could hold me," he replied.


	10. Safe

Ed watched the sun rise without actually seeing it, bright copper gold on the blinds and the cold rush of wind on chimes. He was lying on his side, melting into Havoc's surprisingly comfortable couch. There was a strange feeling in his mouth, similar to the aftertaste of flu or fever. "Havoc." He muttered, noticing the blond man, fast asleep with his head resting against the sofa cushions. Ed couldn't stifle his snickering.

"What?" Jean groaned in reply, eyes still closed.

"Well…" Ed thought aloud, not quite sure how to put it without seeming rude. "I know I'm on injury leave, but shouldn't you be heading to work?"

Havoc sighed, rubbing his forehead on the scratchy material of the couch. "I'll call Hawkeye later and tell her to cover for me. I'll just tell her Janie needs more marrow or something..." He paused, realizing Edward had no idea who he was talking about. He opened his eyes for a moment, only to find there was just minute curiosity in the sparkling hue of Edward's gaze. Best to leave well enough alone. "Christ." He looked at the clock embedded in the television. "It's two in the afternoon."

Ed's eyes lowered. "That's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying?" Jean's brows furrowed. It suddenly occurred to him that although Mustang had allowed him to stay for one night, Mustang's moods changed like the weather. "Don't worry. Mustang's got his own problems to sort out. I'll keep you-"

"-You can let go of me, you know." Ed said, face turning a deep shade of rose. A faint smirk crossed his lips, Havoc gripping his hand in a death lock. The flesh had gone red, not that he minded any; warmth spread from the tips of his fingers to his core.

"Oh, right." Havoc agreed, releasing his hold and jumping almost immediately to his feet. He rubbed the back of his head with an embarrassed expression, glancing around the room for any kind of distraction. So long as he didn't have to look at the amused teen on his sofa, eyebrows arched in silent reverie. "You know, you haven't eaten in a while. How about some breakfast?"

Ed yawned, covering his mouth with his hand and blinking at the curtain-covered sunshine. "It's two PM, remember?"

"Lunch then." Jean substituted. "Don't think you're getting out of this, cause you're not."

"Ah, damn. You know, I think I'm just going to go back to sleep." Ed groaned, turning over and twisting himself in the mothy smelling fabric. He buried his head in the soft upholstery, some lingering scent of stale cigarettes circulating in his nostrils pleasantly. "Do whatever you want."

"Can that include force-feeding you?" Havoc rolled his eyes. He went over to the television set, picking up his keys, and tossed them from hand to hand. "I can grab something if you want. Did Mustang give you anything yesterday?"

Ed's body went rigid as a plank, or perhaps it was only Jean's imagination. His fist curled around a clump of blanket, trembling slightly, dark thoughts chaotic and like a storm inside his brain. He didn't want to remember. Couldn't remember. Jean looked at his wrist, and his stomach jolted uncomfortably as he noticed the fine red line of rope burn. "I had something, yeah. Not much."

"Ed," Havoc started, before closing his mouth. He closed his eyes in brief soliloquy, and then said, "I saw him kiss you yesterday. Or try to, anyway. And...Edward, has he touched you at all? Anywhere he shouldn't be touching you?" The question felt like bile in his mouth. Ed was just a kid. Possibly an attractive one, in some eyes, and if Mustang hit him, then maybe Mustang wasn't above...

He shuddered.

"No," Edward said evenly, though he didn't look at him. "He wouldn't...do that. To me." _Wish he wouldn't have, at least. Wish he wouldn't look at me like he wants to kill me, devour me. Fuck me._ "No, he just shoved me around a little. Showed me my place."

Havoc didn't want to bring up the marks, didn't want to bring up the new bruised fingerprints on the kid's forearm. He tried telling himself that he wanted Ed to bring the topic up, when in actuality he was a bloody coward and he knew it. "Well, I'm starving. Come on, or I'll drag your ass out of those sheets."

Ed groaned loudly, shoving a cushion over his head. "Damn it, I'm tired." He grumbled in muffled tones. "Leave me alone."

"Too late." Havoc couldn't help but grin evilly, taking a step forward and effortlessly scooping the blond up while he was still wrapped in blankets.

"Hey, what are you doing you bastard - !" Ed cried out, struggling madly.

"Jesus, Fullmetal." Havoc said, unceremoniously dropping him on the floor. Edward managed to catch himself with his hands, silently fuming. "You're a lightweight."

"Well, it's what happens when you don't have a partner to train with." Ed muttered, forcing himself up from the harsh carpet. As his body was more or less exposed to colder air, he shivered slightly, and then realized with a jolt that he had absolutely no clothes to wear. It couldn't by hygienic, and God knew who the hell the crimson flecks on his jacket belonged to.

Havoc shared his thoughts. "I have some old t-shirts and stuff upstairs. You don't mind borrowing, right?"

"No." Ed said with a shrug. Should it have bothered him? Was he crossing the line between house guest and lover? What the hell? Why had that thought even ocurred to him? Roy never gave him clothes, he reminded himself. Roy never gave him anything but a quick kiss and soft promises of love that were never fulfilled.

"Come with me."

Ed obeyed, following Jean to the foot of the stairs. They trudged up them slowly, minds half shut down with delayed sleep. When they reached the top, he remained awkwardly in the foyer, wondering if he had any permission to step into someone else's room. Particularly, the room of Lieutenant Havoc.

It took Jean a moment to notice how the teen had suddenly stopped short, but didn't think anything of it. "Here." He pulled out a plain black t-shirt from the middle drawer of his dresser, and then paused as he bent to reach the lower one. He didn't like the thought of finding boxers for the kid; Ed was probably more than capable, and he was paranoid about overstepping Mustang's warnings. _Don't tell me you've never had him suck you off, don't tell me you've never run your hands all over his little body_. "You know…just get what you need. You want to use the shower or something?"

Edward nodded after a moment. He bit down on his lower lip, staring at the floor, thinking, thinking about everything and nothing, about the meaning of love. He had half a mind to ask Havoc, but figured that would be irrelevant. Havoc was single and evidently not a person to be trusted, even if he was protecting him from being hurt. "Do you have a razor?"

Havoc threw the shirt at him, and Ed caught it wordlessly. "I don't know. Can I trust you?" Ed didn't reply. His expression was unreadable but for the most part could be interpreted as serious and imploring. Havoc sighed in resignation. "Yeah, under the sink. One for me and a couple disposables for my sister when she visits, depending on what you're into. Towels are on the rack in there. If you're not back downstairs in twenty minutes, I'm coming for you. Got it?"

Ed took the clothes from him. "I'm not going to cut my wrist up or anything dumb like that."

"I never said you were."

Ed smirked. "But you were thinking it." He said under his breath.

* * *

Edward had been leaning against the wall for what must have been five minutes at least. The shirt that Havoc had given him clung loosely to his wet skin, and water dripped down from hair that he hadn't bothered drying. After Havoc had changed clothes and gone downstairs, Edward had burrowed through the man's dresser for some tight black sweat pants that surprisingly fit him well.

All he could do now was blindly stare at the ceiling, wishing that it would open up. Sometimes he became lost in his own existence. He wondered if life really was just an old children's song; nothing but a dream. If he concentrated hard enough, could he make anything happen? Could he die at will?

…He could smell _her_ now, the metallic scent that lingered at her place of death. Showering tended to temporarily heighten your senses. When he and Al had only been children, he had stepped out of a bath or shower on many occasions. At the time, he could tell just when Granny Pinako had finished a cigar. He could detect the homey scent of apple pie or stew when his mother cooked. At Roy's, sex seemed to be the prevalent choice of smell; his mom used to give him talks about it.

Birds and bees. Kids stuff. She said it was a beautiful thing between a man and a woman - or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. All that mattered was that they loved each other. She didn't get into the mechanics of it, except choice words about girl parts and boy parts and all kinds of uncomfortable shit.

Sex was not a beautiful thing. It was painful and it was humiliating and it was ugly and it was chaotic.

Scrubbing until his skin became red and raw didn't help any. Like blood, cleaning never helped. It just hid the memory under mounds of sin. He wanted so badly to talk to his mom and tell her that it was the only time she had ever been wrong about anything. And still, he wondered if she would be like everyone else, blindly trusting Mustang, blindly trusting him like a sheep to the slaughter.

"I'm sorry." He said to the dead prostitute as he finally got up the courage to open the bathroom door, and leave the humidified room where her ghostly eyes watched his back with passive interest. As soon as he flicked off the light, she disappeared.

* * *

He skipped every other step as he hurried down the stairs, and threw his wet towels in a laundry basket seemingly discarded in the corner. He found Havoc in the kitchen smoking, the smell of eggs fresh in the air. "Damn, didn't know you knew how to cook." Six days was a long time without food, even more if you threw up everything before that. Perhaps his opinion was biased.

"I live alone." Havoc said dismissively, though with an edge of self-flattery, turning away from the skillet on the stove and dicing some peppers. "What, did you expect me to be a fast food junkie?"

"Your rank sort of implies you'd be able to." Ed said in a tone of incredulity. It seemed odd that someone of Havoc's rank and obvious standing wouldn't be living in a mansion by this point. Like the man said himself, he lived alone, so it's not like he had too many mouths to feed. He sat down at the kitchen table, and looked around the room.

Pleasantly decorated, small, nice yellowing flowered wallpaper and a regular brown table set with novelty salt shakers and a napkin holder.

"I don't spend every penny I make on myself, you know." Havoc confided gently, movements slowing as he very evenly diced the peppers to a point where their size became almost microscopic. "My sister Jane has leukemia and my dad has a bad back - I give some money here and there. Along with other expenses..anyway, it helps to be able to know how make a decent meal whether you're single or not."

Edward looked away, a familiar sting of guilt pricking him uncomfortably. He knew perfectly well the meaning of sacrifice to save someone you loved, though the situations clearly had their differences. Al had been a suit of armor, no pain or feeling involved. He didn't know any one with a disease, but did know it might be particularly painful. "I'm sorry." It was all he could say to justify his earlier response. "I didn't know."

"What're you sorry for, Fullmetal?" Havoc asked with an amused, but admittedly sad, smile. He went back to the skillet, taking it by the handle and ever so carefully swishing so that the edge was coated in a fine layer of yolk. "That you have to eat this shit?" He bit down on the cigarette, and looked at with a sparkle in the eye.

Edward frowned stared at Havoc with a blank expression. After a moment, he suddenly laughed, though he didn't know what was so funny. And he couldn't stop. Tears of unbidden happiness stung his eyes, and he had to lean on the wall for support. _What the hell? _He blinked them away, wondering just what the hell was coming over him, and what the fuzzy sensation in his gut meant.

"See?" Havoc grinned, sliding the plate of cheese, meat, and vegetable fillings onto a single half of the yellow-white cake. He took a fork, pleasant smells intoxicating his nostrils, and poked the crisping edges of the egg. He folded it across, blanketing the filling snugly. "You're so scared I'll poison you that you're going insane."

"I'm not going insane, douche bag." Ed leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, hands loosely clasped in front of him. He watched Jean's every movement, every flick of the wrist, every swish, every glint of the silver fork in his rough hand. And he found himself oddly hypnotized. _Maybe I am going insane._ It wasn't so much the movements as the man behind the movements; Jean was so casual and deep at the same time, even at cooking. Did that make any fucking sense at all?

"Alright." Havoc said finally, twisting the knob on the stove. He threw a dishtowel haphazardly over his shoulder, and flipped the large omelet onto a plate that had already been cooked. "Do you want whole of half?"

"Half's fine." Ed had to look away again. They had briefly made eye contact, and it was odd to think that Jean's icy-cold eyes had warmed his body with a single glance. But Ed didn't know what to make of it. Havoc gave him a nostalgic kind of feeling; he remembered that same warmth, but it was from so long ago he had a hard time assembling the thought completely.

Jean wasn't his father and never would be.

"You want anything to drink?" Jean asked, opening the refrigerator. Ed managed to get a sweeping look at the contents, and a crimson flush spread from under the dark fabric of his collar as he discovered the bachelor's refrigerator was unusually well-stocked.

"Anything but milk." He managed to mumble, his hand grazing the back of his head where loose, moist strands of hair cooled his palm. _You know…that grape soda in mine expired three weeks ago. _"I hate that shit."

Havoc set the plate down in front of the golden-eyed teen, and began to pour him a glass of iced tea. "While you were upstairs, I managed to get all of the pills in the trash can. If your head still hurts, I might be able to run up to the drug store later and pick some up." He explained cautiously, testing every word in the lingering air to make sure it passed through the teen's ears with every subtle concern and warning. "You'd be going with me. Understood?"

"Yeah."

"Good." Havoc sat down at the table in front of his own plate, attention darting briefly to Ed and then back down. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the hum of the refrigerator. "Well, if you're not afraid of dying, go ahead and eat it."

Ed sighed. "First." He muttered with downcast eyes. He was apparently very reluctant to speak at all, and did so with obvious force. "I need you to tell me I don't have to."

"Why?"

"Just do it." The boy grumbled, seeming to stare down his food like it were the epitome of evil.

Havoc nodded. His tone was a perfect representation of his unpleasantly coiling emotions. "You don't have to."

Ed slowly picked up the fork, every movement purposefully slow as though he were marching toward a guillotine. He took a hesitant bite, eyes closing briefly as he savored the flavor, and then started chewing. Havoc felt an urge to yell at him. Food wasn't supposed to be meticulous; you were meant to shove it down your throat. Or at least, that was his esteemed opinion; growing up in a house with seven brothers and sisters forced you to eat quickly or starve. "What are you looking at?" Ed snapped with his mouth nearly full.

"Sorry." Havoc said hurriedly, picking up his fork and cutting a large bite-sized chunk of omelet. Damn. Ed could shoot daggers with his eyes, and he seemed to be as reprimanding as any self-respecting parent. "I'm not watching you."

Ed chose to ignore the statement, slipping into a state he was all too familiar with. In his brain, he calculated calories. And he wondered how much he was sacrificing. Not that his painstaking effort was doing any good; indeed, it only seemed to turn Roy on. Bastard. "This is nice." He stated motionlessly, meaning the words but unable to show it. He would be giving up some of his pride. How could he admit defeat after he had already clearly explained that diet wasn't of any vital importance to him? It was like conservatives suddenly deciding gays should be allowed to do whatever they wanted, or an Ishballan defiling the holy book…

"God, you act like I've poisoned you. If you want to spit it out, go ahead."

"No, that's not it. I'm sorry." Ed said in a rush, face burning crimson as he tried to find a compromise. Unfortunately, there wasn't one. He kept his head down, poking at the omelet with his fork as it smiled back at him. His wet bangs acted as a veil, covering his emotional insecurities. He certainly didn't take the dripping hair for a grain of salt.

"Why do you do it?" Havoc asked, not unkindly. His voice wasn't at all demanding; curious, at best. "You can't possibly think you're overweight or something. You're a fucking rail."

"People make people do crazy things." Ed said with closed eyes. The answer seemed proverbial or rhetorical. Not a solution, just something that would satisfy the ones that dared to hope. If Havoc really did like to think there was a silver lining to every issue, he would understand. "But it's not a problem."

"I just don't want to see this get too out of hand. You're healthy enough now, but give it a month or two."

"You know," Ed said, flushed and somehow feeling more exhausted than in any recent time. He put his hand to his head, coaxing the migraine that burned there to fester and die out. "Could we not talk about this? Please?"

"Sure, whatever you want." Jean said soberly. He had been pushing the topic too strenuously; maybe it was best to let it go. It wasn't in his area to mess with, and he really hated being involved in anything that wasn't legally necessary. But if he couldn't be relied on to help Edward with anything at all, then what the hell _was_ his purpose? Was there another reason he was keeping Ed around?

_He's a beautiful kid, Jean. I don't blame you for wanting to fuck his little brains out._

He took an abnormally large sip of water, purifying his thoughts and hoping he died from hydration poisoning. That wasn't true. He didn't want Ed, not in any form or fashion; the only reason those images even dared to show was because of Mustang's damned tongue. "Is there anything you needed today, other than meds?" He asked when he had finished swallowing.

"You don't have to do anything like that."

"Why not?"

Ed hesitated before saying, "Why don't you just take me home? I hate intruding on you like this. It's…weird."

Havoc nearly choked, wondering if Ed's thoughts and his own were on a parallel plane of existence. "Weird how?"

Edward's shoulders moved up and down in a shrug, an unsure smile caressing his face. "I don't know."

"Well, for one, the doctor made it clear she didn't want you alone. She said you might have a seizure, and the MRI still hasn't been completely checked out. Secondly, if you needed anything, you can't drive, and I'm not having you walk alone." Besides, he didn't want Mustang getting his hands on the kid; the Colonel was obviously pissed off about something, and he didn't need the man taking it out on Edward.

"That's a lot of reasons." Ed admitted for lack of something to say, and then took a breath, gaze turning to his hands in his lap. "Look, if you felt up to it, would you mind taking me to the cemetery later, then? It's been a while since I've visited Al, and I kind of miss him." It had been days, and the guilty thought had been burning a hole in his conscience for the same amount of time.

"No, I don't mind. Did you want to get him some flowers or something? Easter's coming up, you know."

"I don't think he would care. Mostly I just like to talk to him." Ed replied, and then shifted his eyes, holding the fork in tight white fingers and shoveling down another bite. He seemed looser, like a greater weight had been lifted from him, but nonetheless chewed slowly.

"You and Al were atheists anyway."

Ed managed a small smile. "We preferred the term 'agnostic.'"

* * *

Darkness crept through the windows at twilight's end, a delicious coolness spreading through the living room and blending sweetly with the sound of the television's buzz. Edward sat on one end of the couch, smiling with contempt and amusement. His knees were drawn up to his chest as he tried not to laugh, biting his tongue.

Havoc shot him a wicked glance, trying to catch the teen in the act of actually enjoying what was on TV. In the car, he had made a bet.

Apparently Ed was winning. "Alright," Jean said, leaning forward with the television remote acting as a teacher's pointer, "Do you _feel _the cruel humor grabbing you by the throat? Does Dwight not annoy you endlessly?" _The Office_ was his pick for a show. At the video store, Edward had insisted on some weird movie in German that Havoc had never heard of.

"Oh, he annoys me all right." Ed admitted casually, and then stopped. It was the kind of sentence that made you think there was more of an explanation to come, if you only asked the right question beforehand. Clearly Edward was trying to push all of the buttons Havoc had at his disposal.

"Any particular reason?"

"He reminds me of you, actually." Ed said with a playful laugh.

"Oh, come on. I'm not at all like that."

"You kiss everybody's ass, even I can see it." Ed shifted his position, pulling the couch cushion from beneath him and holding it threateningly, daring the older man to try attacking him because of the remark.

"Jean Havoc doesn't kiss ass." Havoc said a bit more seriously, the shadow of a smile playing on his lips. Almost as an afterthought, "But he does own it. Hand me my cigarettes, would you?"

Edward's face turned to one of confused innocence. He eyed the pack on the table, right next to a new bottle (sample, so that even if Ed did try anything, it wouldn't be dangerous) of Advil and said quietly, "What, those? Is that what you want?" He carefully picked them up, examining them and shaking the tiny container enticingly. "Well, gee, I really don't know if I should let you have them."

Havoc froze. "You sneaky little bastard."

"I don't think we need to resort to name calling, Lieutenant." Ed said deviously. He looked at the back of the pack, shaking his head in mock disapproval. "Surgeon General says these shouldn't be given to children. Guess that counts you out. Sorry, I just can't let you have these."

"Well, I don't know who the _fuck_ this Surgeon General guy is, but I don't know him and don't think taking advice from strangers is recommendable. So hand them over," Havoc said with a glare, holding his hand out expectantly.

Just as he was about to lunge for the teen, the phone started ringing. He shot a questioning look at Ed, whose face fell just a bit. "Hold on," Havoc muttered, turning the television on mute with a press of a button. He stood up and hurried into the kitchen, where the tan colored wall phone continued to ring. "Hello?"

"Yes, is this Jean Havoc?"

"Who wants to know?"

"I am Dr. Martin, I specialize in neurology at St. Lito's medical center. A patient named Edward Elric checked himself out last night at around three in the morning, and we have been trying to come into contact with him for some time today. We first tried the number on Elric's patient card, but we only received the machine. Another number gave us a man named Roy Mustang. He forwarded us to you."

"Yeah," Havoc answered. "I've got Ed right here. What's wrong? Is he okay?"

"I'm going to get right to chase. The CT and MRI scans indicated nothing particularly unusual. Spinal injury, some brain damage, so he might be experiencing severe headaches or migraines in the next few weeks."

"Do you know what caused it?"

"Our objective isn't to find cause. We ask no questions as long as we're paid to do what we've learned in school, Mr. Havoc."

"So I'm assuming you already know," Havoc muttered, voice lowering a few decibels. He was aware that Ed could be listening to the conversation from the other room, and subtly changed his position so that he was facing away from the teen. "That it was assault."

There was a brief pause. Havoc's gaze shifted to Edward on the sofa. The boy was lying on the couch with his head pointed toward the ceiling, throwing the pack of cigarettes into the air with a bored expression.

"You know," Ed called from the other room sarcastically, "These could give you cancer, asshole."

Jean turned away again, listening as Dr. Martin continued, "We are not police. If you have personal suspicions, it's up to you to act upon them. I have no authoritative reason to believe that Elric was the subject of any neglect or abuse."

"I never mentioned neglect or abuse, bastard, meaning you do have authoritative reason to believe it."

"I'll hang up on you if you resort to such talk again," The doctor replied, and it was more than a spit in the face, a stomp on the foot. "We've been granted an unusual sum of money from Colonel Mustang. He says you're not to be trusted. Now who are we to believe? Edward refused to speak up. On one hand, there's an established military ranked man, and then there's you." There was a snicker. "How's your girlfriend? How's the baby?"

Jean gripped the phone more tightly. "You dumb fucker! Son of a bitch. So now you're going to blackmail me? Is that it? Real fucking mature-"

Havoc went numb as the line went dead. He stared at the phone with a clenched hand. He slammed it on the hook, and then pounded the wall with his fist, fighting back a yell of frustration.

"Someone piss you off?" Ed asked as Havoc reentered the living room, tossing him his cigarettes. Havoc caught it, eyes unfocused. He sat down on the couch, mouth a thin line. "You okay?"

"Just thinking. It's not about you, don't worry about it," Havoc said breezily, plastering on a smile. He picked up the remote, wondering if Ed noted the way his face had gone red with angry heat. "Is there anything you wanted to watch?"

Ed nestled back into the couch, shaking his head with indifference. "I don't care," He murmured quietly, reading Havoc's thoughts. Even if he hadn't heard much of the conversation, he could tell from body language that it had been about him.

"Music videos. Eugh, for you I'll keep it on here. Aren't kids supposed to be into that shit?"

Ed shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not really a kid, so I can't speak for them."

Havoc flipped the channels, his finger beginning to ache from repetitive motion. Flash after flash filled the dark living room, and Edward kept sending him nervous glances. "Was it someone I know?" Ed asked at last, eyes glued to the television screen even as Havoc kept indecisively flipping.

"No."

"Was it Mustang?"

"No."

"Then who?" Ed demanded with a slightly strained voice. He didn't like being kept in the dark. Not knowing things was almost as bad as knowing them. If it was Mustang - if Havoc was lying - oh, God. What if Havoc knew? What if Havoc knew the awful, awful things he'd let Mustang do to him?

"The hospital, back with your MRI results. Just said to get bed rest, that's all."

"Something's wrong, isn't there? Do I have to go back to the hospital?"

"Nothing's wrong. It's just…Ed, did Mustang…" Havoc paused, fighting to get the words out before they escaped him. It was stupid, and yet seemed to be vitally important at the moment. _ Money. _It was all about money. Roy was a motherfucking prick; he was sure of that. Years ago, Mustang had gotten in deep shit with Hawkeye when she'd found out the man had been hitting Ed regularly, but it had never been so severe - and he'd stopped when he finally got the twelve-year-old to cry. "He really beat the crap out of you, didn't he?"

This wasn't crying this time; Roy didn't feel guilt this time. Edward had been sobbing and screaming and trying to push the motherfucker off of him. What scared him wasn't that the kid had been hurt - it was that he didn't know the extent of the hurt. Edward hadn't told anyone. They could only assume that Roy would never lay a finger on him, and that had obviously failed when it came to protecting the boy.

Ed stiffened, and then shook his head. "No, it wasn't that bad. I was just really...really tired, you know? It really was an accident. He wouldn't...he means well."

_You little fucking liar._ "At the hospital…they didn't ask you questions, or anything? They never asked you how you got hurt?"

"Yeah, but Roy paid them money. I don't know how much," Ed admitted with a guilty frown. It was as though he was apologizing for not being able to describe every detail of the occurrence. "It's almost better that he did. No one needs to know about this, no one needs to be pressing charges against him. He's like...well, he's pretty much the only reason I'm alive, you know?"

"Ed, why shouldn't anyone know?"

"Well, first of all," he said, choosing his words carefully, "I deserved it. I'm such a prick to him, all the time. Mouthing off and shit. He hurts me because he loves me." His voice had unwillingly turned monotone, and he kept his eyes on the ground. Actually, he seriously doubted that. Roy didn't love him. Not like someone so much older should.

"You think it's right that he beat the ever living fuck out of you? Ed, you're a small kid. No offense, but you are. Even if you think you deserve it - which you don't - he could have seriously hurt you, whatever he did. Do I need to get Hawkeye back to shoot a bullet in his ass?"

Ed licked his lips uneasily, bracing himself for Havoc's reaction. "No, Hawkeye doesn't need to know. I don't even think she'd believe you - she loves him, Lieutenant, and I don't want to...screw anything up. I'm not worth that."

"Not worth it," Havoc said. "I see."

"Do you think...do you think I...deserve this? Do you think he has the right to..." For some unfathomable reason, his eyes clouded up with tears. No matter what Mustang said, or did, none of it made sense. Maybe Mustang did have a right to hurt him, but he didn't think that he deserved to be hurt. He didn't think he needed to deal with the man's lust or his temper or his insanity.

"No. And don't you ever think that again, or I'll kick your ass." Havoc practically ripped the lid off of the cigarette box, quickly flicking the lighter and holding it to the tip of a slender stick. The ash burned bright orange, and Havoc held the other end to his lips, inhaling deeply. "Ed, he's sick in the head. Don't listen to a word he has to say, ever."

"But I have to…"

"Ever." Havoc ordered firmly, eyes blazing like the tip of the burning cigarette. There were several things he would have liked to do to Roy Mustang, and several of them involved severe torture. His head buzzed with images - Roy throwing the kid into walls, slapping him when he protested - and the sound of the man's voice, the chilling, covertly _sexual _undertones it carried. "You don't know the crazy things going on in his mind right now. Stay the fuck away from him. If he lays a hand on you, I'll kill him."

The cigarette smoke drifted upward in a foggy haze, disappearing as it hit the ceiling.

_Protecting you is like catching that smoke with my bare hands. Improbable, impossible, and I'd be a fool to do it. But I want you to understand that just for today…_

_I'll be a fool._


	11. Mirrors

**Revised and fixed continuity errors. Gimme a break, this is a long fic and I'm ADD XP **

* * *

Roy was aware of only two things: icy cold hands, those of a stranger, holding him as he violently emptied his stomach contents into a sewer grate. He hoarsely whispered words of thanks, and allowed himself to be gently laid against a dark brick wall lined with garbage cans. Loud, screaming music bellowed from inside the once abandoned apartments behind him, graffiti and boarded up windows making the building appear haunted.

He didn't know the woman's name. She was an extremely thin, short-skirted girl with bright red lipstick. A hooker with more years on her face than she cared to lie about. He focused on her lips, understanding none of the words that came from them. If he tried to keep his attention there, then it wouldn't be on his thoughts.

He was shaking vigorously.

"Yo, Lars." The woman said, smacking her gum rather loudly as she stared at him from beneath frizzy blond hair. "We need some blankets."

"No..." Roy mumbled, numbly comprehending her words. He didn't want any more, not now. He couldn't take it. The last thing he remembered was leaving the hospital, leaving Ed and Havoc alone together - he had to find them - "No more, can't...I..."

"Relax, hon. You're only tripping." She calmed him gently, kneeling so that they were level. He got an eyeful of her cleavage, and abruptly turned his head. She laughed softly, and then guided his head back to her with a cool palm. "S'alright, now listen to me. How many fingers am I holding up, love?"

He honestly couldn't tell. "Three?"

"Nope, zero. Thanks for trying. Lars, where the bloody fuck's those blankets? And get something warm for him, put him to sleep..."

Roy heard muffled shouts from inside the building, along with what sounded like someone rummaging through a mess of bottles. One broke, and there was a loud expletive. "Where are we?" He asked, finding it difficult to form words.

She smiled thinly, glancing once back at the lit doorway of the apartments. It was emitting a foul smell. "You took dot and ended up spewing the most godawful shit I've ever heard or seen. Eh, you wouldn't happen to be one of them war veterans, would you now?"

He shook his head, eyes closing as a foul headache raged beneath the hair on his skull. "No, no I don't know anything about that." He remembered, though, despite the law he had told. Fear clenching his gut, the smell of blood boiling. Trapped in a tent reserved for the dying. Three days with his screaming men, and Edward in a shell-shocked state clutching his arm tightly. It had been such hell. They'd actually had the nerve to tear Fullmetal away from him...God knows what they had him do...

"Hey, there's no need to cry, now." The woman said in a smoky, and yet still delicate, tone. She rubbed his shoulder, talking to him softly with an accent reminiscent of cockney. Roy realized with shame and alarm that he was sobbing hysterically.

"I h-hurt him so bad," He whispered shakily, knowing in his heart that he wouldn't remember the stabbing regret later on. He hoped he would. He drew his arms closer to his body, raking his glove less fingers along prickly skin.

"Who did you hurt?"

"My son." Roy managed to say, rocking forward on the balls of his feet. He stared straight ahead, the opposite wall of the alleyway acting as a movie screen for his memories. The world was transforming; it was so strange, so surreal, so heart wrenching and familiar. A living nightmare. "I don't want to go back there, not to see them...those people...I don't want to hurt anyone anymore..." The woman gripped his hand tightly, quite used to his sort of behavior. She didn't know why she cared so much. Maybe she could feel his pain.

Roy held on for a second longer, afraid of losing his mind completely. "Something's wrong with me." He stuttered, insanity's dark embrace taking him in. He doubted it would ever surrender.

* * *

_"Roy...listen t-to me..." Ed whispered with closed eyes. He cringed, crying out as a fresh wave of pain racked his body. The army cot rubbed against his skin uncomfortably; he could feel slimy, half-dried blood of another man soaking between the folds of his jacket. That soldier had already died, carted off to be sent to his family in Liesenburgh. "Please don't let me die here..." He didn't know how long he had laid in that bed, clothes wet with his own crimson body fluids. There was something haunted about the dark tent. It was too hot here, and the atmosphere was heavy. Death hung in the air like a cloud..._

_"I'm not, Fullmetal. Shut up and go to sleep." Roy commanded with less force than intended, listening to the boy as he struggled to take breaths. He wanted to cry. Oh, how much he wanted to cry. Some drunken asshole on the other side had taken a machete to the kid and stabbed him. It was a miracle that the blade hadn't caused any severe internal injury. If only he had the guts to burn the bleeding wound shut. What prevented him was his own cowardice - if he smelled flesh boiling one more time, especially his subordinate's, he'd go nuts.  
_

_"Where's Alphonse?" Ed asked, gripping Roy's jacket sleeve tightly. "Is he still at south base?" His eyes were cloudy and unfocused, and his skin so pale that Roy thought he was seeing a ghost. The teen was dying, clearly, but holding on to life as Roy had seen him do countless times before. This was not the end. _

_"Yes."_

_"Am I going to die?"  
_

_Roy's lip trembled momentarily. "Probably." He admitted, blocking out the other soldier's screams and moans, finding comfort in the fact that there was nothing more he could do to prevent the fact. If Ed could hold out until aid arrived, then he had a shot, but there was only one kind of shot here. If it came to a point where Ed was in agony, Roy knew he had a round of bullets stocked in his gun. _

_If it came to a point...that particular point, he didn't know what else he'd do.  
_

_Roy put his arms around the shaking boy, and forced him to stay close; the warm, small form didn't struggle as he usually did, was weak and knew it. Roy preferred it to the raging teenager he was accompanied to. Preferred it because he was easier to handle and control. Presently he might have given that control up if only he could see the light flood back into breathtaking gold eyes. He ran his fingers through the boy's dirtied and blood soiled hair, finding the softness underneath the crust of grime.  
_

_Roy laid him gently down on the cot, and the teen turned his head with a soft sound from parted lips. He said nothing. The room muted itself, but the smell didn't leave. Roy would have killed every angel in heaven to make it go away. He leaned forward, half delirious with sleep deprivation and mindless need; a tingling sort of guilty pleasure, combined with that primitive instinct of escaping blood. He caught the unconscious blond's head between his spiderweb fingertips, and kissed him gently. _

_"Ed..." He whispered, watching as the blond's eyes flickered beneath the lids but didn't open. "Do you mind if I stay with you tonight?" Please say no. He thought desperately. Please say no, go away, get the hell away from me. Please.  
_

_Edward didn't protest as the dark-haired man laid down on the tarp floor, one elbow on the cot, and slowly stroked his head. "No..." He murmured, fidgeting slightly. "I don't."  
_

* * *

Roy wasn't particularly fond of churches. To him, they meant brainwashing the masses to follow a doctrine written for a single man's personal agenda. They caused wars, intolerance, and could change the mind of a devout believer simply by marking their ideas as works of the devil. So why was he walking, in the freezing March cold, to the old cathedral by Hill's Crest Road?

His breath making a foggy imprint on the afternoon air, he walked across the parking lot. The area was decidedly empty. After waking up in the same alley, alone, some time that afternoon, the church was the first place he had thought of going. Maybe he was really that desperate.

When he walked through the large, double oaken doors and felt a sudden lukewarm temperature change, he swallowed. There was no sign of artificial light in the room, a colored brightness filtering in through the tall colored glass of the windows. His every step echoed, and he got the disturbing notion of being watched. The dusty rafters had places of shadow, and he thought for a moment that he saw a ghostly face staring back at him.

Why had he come to a cathedral, on a Saturday, well after five PM? Did he want to catch a glimpse of hope? The kind that only the rich and the white and the heterosexual could enjoy? Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he wanted to pretend he was still pure at heart; God, as they said, forgave all sin. But how could he interpret his own actions as sin when they made him feel powerful for once in his life? If something felt good, then didn't that logically make it...?

Wasn't it just like that old eye for an eye law, what he had done to Ed? Edward had killed, certainly, and destroyed countless lives.

But everyone died. Was every soldier just a pawn in God's game, speeding up the circle of life? And if _that_ were true, then what was the significance of a human being in the first place?

_Are we things, experiments, given free will but hardly a choice in whether we live or die or kill or..._

If everyone followed eye for an eye, the whole world would be blind...

He shook his head, walking through to the sanctuary. Row after row of polished pew met his fingertips. In his imagination, he could see two little boys running down the aisles. They were poorly dressed, their faces thin with hunger. But their eyes glowed as they hid from one another in a playful game. There was a shadow of a man, old and sickly, that claimed to be their father. Right away, the scene changed. The old man was dead, lying in an open casket while the two boys argued with pure hate in their voices.

He sighed. "What am I doing here?" He asked himself miserably. He turned around, wanting to get back to his bed at home where he could stare at his ceiling for hours and hours. He bowed his head as he walked in silent prayer, even though he didn't believe anyone was listening. He couldn't put his pleas to exact words; he just hoped that he was getting his message across.

Was it really so wrong to want to lean on someone else's shoulder? Or had he taken it too far, listening to the wrong voices in his head? Maybe he hadn't taken love so much as he had taken innocence. Edward was just one of those people that hadn't lived long enough, hadn't drunk in the rare happiness that simple life gave if you really looked...to love back willingly.

They were both lost.

* * *

_"You're one sick motherfucker." Ed growled through his teeth, glaring hard from beneath damp and fear matted bangs. Everything about him felt soiled and rotten and dehumanized, from his tangled hair to his completely exposed body. He fidgeted a bit in the rough twine that bound his wrists together, a substitute for the handcuffs Roy had tried to find but couldn't. In the end kink had given way to priority; if he hadn't been restrained, Ed would have beat the shit out of him. _

_The older man's eyes were glazed over and dark, narrowed to a point where they seemed to belong to another face; not the Colonel's, but some nameless leer of a man in the dark that didn't care who the hell he was fucking so long as they were breathing. "You want to run that by me again?" He crawled forward on the bed, the room stifled and heated from the black curtains on the window; applied haphazardly in the chance that he might get some sleep. "Angel?" He reached out to cup the teen's jaw, but Ed snapped at his fingers. "Dirty little slu-" _

_Ed shook his head hard, and then kicked him, trying to crawl away onto the floor and toward a phone - there was one on the side table, but it looked disconnected - _

_Roy caught him by his hair and pulled him so that he was lying on his back, a completely automatic scream tearing from the boy's throat. All Roy caught were a few desperate, repeated cries of 'no' before he pushed himself on top of the blond, holding his bound wrists in one hand. "This is for your own good, darling..." _

_"Let me go." Ed tried again, the words so familiar to him that he nearly didn't say them. He closed his eyes, aware of the man staring at him, fucking him inside of his head. And he waited, and waited, but he was never touched. Maybe he was supposed to say please. "Why are you doing this to me?" And that was something he had never asked. _

_"Because..." Roy thought about it for a moment, searched in the vast emptiness that had become his conscience for a legitimate answer. Probably because he was lonely, for one. Partly because the temptation and the taboo of it was so damn satisfying. Mostly because Charlie had told him to, because Charlie had supplied him with the motivation and the means to do it. "...You're so damn beautiful." _

_Roy bent down and kissed his throat, letting his lips suck gently at the heat, feeling the flinches and uncomfortable squirming of the blond beneath him. Mournful crying met his ears, and he tried to ignore it, even as the sobs grew louder. Every time he tried to touch him, some word of quiet and choked protest found its way into his brain, and it was getting annoying. "Shut up." _

_"Fuck you..." _

_Roy slapped him before he realized he'd raised his hand. One second, nothing, the next, crack. Strange. The shock of it made his heart beat just a bit faster. He didn't think he had ever hit him that hard before, and liked it. "Don't you ever use that language around me. Disrespectful whore-" He made to hit him again. _

_"Stop calling me that!" _

_"Then quit acting like one. You certainly let all the higher ups have their way with you...don't forget that I own you, and all good little sluts need to respect their owners..."_

_Ed closed his eyes. The bastard didn't understand and would never understand. Not once in his life had he ever let someone touch him, let alone a man twice his age. But words didn't count and there was no way he could defend himself. If he denied it, he would only end up getting hurt. It was times like these, when the situation was out of his hands, that he longed for his mother. "You promised me you wouldn't hurt me." He said quietly, afraid to look at him.  
_

_Roy stared at him for a moment. Briefly, like a millisecond epiphany, his eyes flickered in guilt. It soon subsided, and the same sinister tone took over. __"Promises are empty, sweetheart, they always are. There's no such thing as God and your mommy's dead. Get the fuck over it." Roy clamped a hand over his mouth, pushing his head back and leaning closer toward him; frightful, muffled breathing and the occasional whimper resounded in his palm, and he let the moment freeze, daring the kid to stir intentionally. Then he let go, and stood up as though nothing had occurred.  
_

_Ed waited, falling against the mattress, trembling. Roy walked into the other room, and Ed heard him pick up a phone. _

_"Hello?" He heard Roy say into the mouthpiece. Ed drew his knees up to his chest, shivering. He didn't dare try to cut himself loose, though it could have been easily achieved; there was a pocketknife on Roy's bedside table._

_"Yeah, he's right here. No, I haven't forgotten. Thanks, you're right, it's really working..." Roy's head appeared in the doorway, phone pressed against his ear. Roy looked the teen over with a slick smile. "He's like the devil disguised as an angel...who knows what's going on in his head? So, no, I can't say for sure..." _

_...Though, that pocketknife was a bit enticing...he was close enough to reach it without Roy noticing..._

_Roy had moved back into the other room, making for the perfect opportunity. As quietly as possible, Ed leaped for the knife on the table. He strained his ears, ready to dive if the other man caught him. He flicked the knife open, and then struggled to cut at the bonds restraining him. _

_"I suppose I could wait. But you know how desperate I am..."_

_Ed pleaded with whatever God there was to let him escape. The rope finally fell apart, and he rubbed at his wrists. "Fuck..." He whispered, the skin raw and bleeding. _

_It was too quiet..._

_He whipped his head around to the bedroom door, and realized in an instant that Roy was standing there, quite phoneless. Frozen in paralyzed fear, he sunk back into a wall as Roy approached him furiously. _

_"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"_

_"Nothing...nothing, I haven't..." He was slapped hard, and he gasped, doubling over. Roy pulled him by his hair, throwing him to the ground. He struggled, crawling towards the door in the hopes of finding the phone in the other room. If he could only reach it, he'd be saved; he could call the police, he could..._

_He could only scream..._

_He was being kicked repeatedly in the head, over...and over...He couldn't find the voice to cry out, only struggle wildly, nose bleeding as he gasped for air to fill his dying lungs...he couldn't yell anymore..._

_It was black...done..._

_Over. _

_Later on, Roy had a guilty revelation. Ed had tried to tell the hospital the truth, that it wasn't a window at all, that it wasn't a fall down the stairs or a clumsy knock into a doorway, that had caused the concussion. But one dark glare and the unspoken promise of death had silenced him.  
_

* * *

"Maes. Something's happening to me. These memories...they're mine, but they don't feel like they're mine. Is it possible, Maes?" Roy asked, touching the polished gray stone of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. His friend lay, decomposing, beneath his feet. It was a sorry fact, and he didn't often like to reflect on it. But he accepted it. Could Maes still listen, even in death? Did the dead, like God, judge a man's sin? "Is is possible for one man to possess two conflicting motivations?"

There were times he wanted to apologize to Ed. There were times he felt passionate, rather than compassionate. And then there were the times...the subtle, dark times where he didn't feel like himself. Where he wanted to _murder _that child and everything he stood for.

"But I don't want him dead, Maes..." He sobbed quietly, wanting nothing more than a tall glass of draft and a smoke. "No matter how much this monster inside of me wants to kill him, I don't want him dead." He sniffed, feeling more like a little child than a grown man. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he picked it up. "Hello?" He asked, wiping away his tears and hiding the sniveling tone in his voice.

"Hello, Mustang." Charlie said cheerily. "How are you today?"

"Absolutely wonderful. I was thinking of killing myself just this morning, but took a walk instead."

"Don't trouble me with your self pity. Life begets misfortune, and in these cruel and cold times, we must turn that misfortune into optimism. Have you been practicing the skills I have mentored? Or have you failed me again?" Charlie seemed vaguely disappointed, and there was a tremor of lilting anger beneath the smooth confidence.

Roy kept his eyes on the gravestone. "I suppose you're talking about Jean Havoc."

"Well, who else would I be talking about? You let him and that little whore walk free, no strings attached."

"There were strings." Roy started off, and then stopped. Numb pockets of excuse bubbled to the surface of his mind and then popped. "Karma has a way of getting back at Jean. I just reminded him of the fact."

"His girlfriend."

"Ex-girlfriend, actually," Roy corrected. He shifted his shoulders, heat beginning to pack itself like fire in the pores of his flesh. The sun was starting to beat down with the chill of an arctic summer. Maybe it was all in his head. "Used to know her back in the day. I'm sure you know all about it. Knocked her up and she chalked it all up to rape so her parents wouldn't disown her."

Charlie snickered a husky, smoking laugh. "How terribly ironic."

"Of course." Roy's forehead creased into a dozen folds. It was as though Maes was standing just beside him, whispering ghostly nothings in his ear, telling him to shut the fuck up and stop his own pulse and let the world beat and turn on its own rusty little axis. "He's a good man. Completely unlike me. Cares for his family - pays for his sister's medical care out of his own check. Cares about...cares about Ed..." He choked a little on the last word, looking guiltily down and up.

"And you're jealous of that love, aren't you?"

"Jealous?" He breathed. Blinked. "Hardly."

"You own that boy. Own his blood, his body, his mind. Make him understand that. Hurt him. And in time, Jean'll have to fall under your hand, too. Blackmail the son of a bitch. What would happen to his baby sister if the checks stopped coming? If all of a sudden, he didn't have a job because the rape charges were leaked to someone with the power to remove him?"

"Right...right..."

"For God's sake. Use your brains; they're wasting space."

Roy looked over the fence. Alphonse laid there at rest, sleeping eternally, unaware and uncaring that his brother was being pulled far too deeply into an intoxication he couldn't control. Roy made a decision to bring the forever fourteen year old flowers. Blue ones.

* * *


	12. Flowers

**Note: The first scene takes place just a little bit after chapter eleven. The next scenes take place the day after chapters ten and eleven. **

* * *

Riza glanced up and down the sidewalk, leather jacket hugging her athletic frame in the darkening light of the day. In her gloved fingers she held a steaming cup of coffee and Black Hayate's leash. Her breath froze in midair. The temperature had inexplicably dropped; people all over the city were complaining that it was quite unusual for March weather.

She wholeheartedly agreed, but didn't find trivial things like that of any great importance.

She was walking in the older districts of Central city. She preferred it here. There were many quaint family owned businesses; the types that had little patios out front and flowers hanging on every beam. The district had been around since the city's early days, before skyscrapers had made a permanent indention on its surface. Urbanization had taken Amestris by storm some time in the sixties, and while she had always known it that way herself, she couldn't help but be slightly miffed as life became more and more commercialized.

What was wrong with romanticism, anyway? Not that anyone would ever think of her as a romanticist, but it couldn't be denied.

She paused, allowing a young couple to pass her by. She shifted her left hand, the dull brown leash wrapped around her wrist. Black Hayate stayed close to her while simultaneously scratching at his ear with a small paw. She frowned at the movement, and sighed, wondering if anyone else noticed that she was the only woman on the block with just an animal as a companion.

Church bells began to ring. Hayate perked his head up, and glanced in the direction just south of where they were standing, a soft wind ruffling his fur. Riza listened, the sound resounding like a memory; she hadn't heard bells since that morbid, lonely day at Maes' funeral. No one had cried.

They were in too much shock.

Gracia hadn't allowed Elysia to attend. The poor child hardly knew what death meant. And then in a rush, she began to notice that certain people had disappeared from her life. Where was Alphonse, why didn't he visit anymore? Why did Edward always look so sad? And why didn't daddy tuck her in at night?

Riza had heard all of those heartbreaking revelations from Gracia, before that woman, too, had vanished from the face of the earth to live with her sister in Tucket.

"Come on, we'd better get back to the car." She gently pulled at the dog's leash, and turned on her heel. The car was parked a few blocks away, but she knew that if she walked briskly they would manage to get home before eight-thirty.

Once she got home, though, what then? Would she do what she did every night – play somber music while soaking away her troubles in a scalding hot bath, and then drink wine as though she had someone to sip with – or perhaps go straight to bed? She didn't know.

"Riza?" a voice questioned behind her. She stopped, and then turned her head. There was surprise laced into her tone.

"Colonel, what are you doing here?"

"A personal venture, Lieutenant," Roy said somberly, but he walked so that they were standing beside each other. He looked into her eyes for a moment in silence, and then said quietly with an inclined head, "It's kind of cold out here, isn't it? It's crazy."

She managed a wan smile, hiding the bitterness of her thoughts. "I hardly noticed, sir."

Roy laughed to himself, and then shoved his hands into his pockets. He started to head in the direction of her car, and she could tell he assumed she would follow. "You can drop the formalities. We're not at headquarters."

"Of course," she said quietly, and then hurried to walk alongside him. A street lamp flickered to life, orange light casting a glow on the pavement. She held the coffee up to her lips, and drank. From the corner of her eye, she caught Roy glancing quickly at her. "Something the matter?"

"No," Roy muttered thoughtfully. Then afterward, "You look nice tonight."

She felt her cheeks turn red, quite unused to being complimented, especially by her superior officer. Especially by Roy. But nonetheless, she was flattered. "Thank you, sir."

"I mean it," he said gently. "I think I've only ever seen you in uniform."

"Most people can relate."

"Unfortunate. Anyway, why are you out this late? Can't imagine you having any dates to attend to."

She ignored the comment. "I needed the exercise," she explained simply. "But what about you?"

He shrugged. "I had some extra time today, so I stopped by the cemetery."

She frowned, brief anger flashing in her eyes. "Certainly you had extra time today, Colonel. You never showed up to work."

"I'll take care of it."

"You violated federal law. You could be court-marshaled."

"I told you, I'll handle it," Roy said to himself. "I'm not a child."

"That's funny. You tend to act like one, with all due respect," she said coldly.

He heaved a deep sigh. "I apologize."

"Apology accepted. Now if you don't mind, would you care explaining why you were absent, especially so close to your examination date? Frank Archer's going to have a field day."

Roy frowned. "Well, we can't have that, now can we? If you must know, I was worried sick about Fullmetal." It wasn't a lie. Mostly.

"You never told me what happened to him," Riza admonished. "I received a frantic phone call in the middle of the night from you, telling me that he's in the hospital with severe brain trauma, but you didn't have the guile to tell me why."

"Well, like you said. I was frantic," Roy replied dryly. When she gave him a dirty look, he sighed resignedly and explained, "He…hasn't been himself. He's very secretive. And to be honest, I think he's hurting himself."

Her eyes lowered suspiciously. "What do you mean, sir?"

"Well, he's had an awful lot of 'accidents' lately. I'm not sure…maybe I'm just imagining things, but I'm almost certain they're not truly 'accidents' at all."

"What are you implying?" she asked quietly. "That he's initiating in self-destructive behavior? For what reason, might I ask? Attention?" She supposed it could be true. After all, the boy had no living relatives, and everyone knew his life up to now had been pretty much a living hell.

"Precisely. And it's not as far-fetched as you might think."

"Have you talked with him about it?" she asked concernedly.

"Haven't had the chance."

"Well, he's staying with you, isn't he? I assumed that was why you stayed home today, but obviously not, seeing as you're chatting conversationally with me instead."

"No," he said after a time. He seemed slightly put-out. "I couldn't possibly handle having him around twenty-four seven. Hell, I can barely last the ten hours at headquarters with him. I handed him to Havoc. He didn't seem to mind at all."

"I figured as much. Jean was absent today as well. I swear, sir, the three of you are going to be under a mess of scrutiny when you return. At least Ed has a verifiable claim of absence, especially with having every weekend off, but even so, I haven't seen him and can't readily assume he was ever injured in the first place. How is he doing?"

"I'm not sure. He had a concussion, that's all I know."

"And how did it happen?"

Roy was silent for a moment. "He fell."

"Doesn't he always?"

"Like I said, self-destructive behavior. I have a right to be worried."

Riza froze in her steps, fire in her eyes. Black Hayate yelped. "Did it ever occur to you, sir, that someone might be hurting him?"

He stopped, too, but he wasn't facing her. He made no movement. "And what makes you think that?"

"Maybe you don't notice it, sir, and I can't blame you for that," she whispered darkly, fingers clenched tightly around the leash. Black Hayate circled around her ankles timidly. "But lately, I get the feeling that something's wrong and no one gives a damn."

He turned to face her, expressionless. Another street lamp flickered to life above his head. His dark hair reflected it. "You drive a Buick, don't you?" he asked monotonously.

She nodded, blinking back unexplained tears. "Yes, why?"

He inclined his head toward a black car just beside him, and she realized in a quick instant that they had arrived. Her gaze found the bridal shop windows, sparkling white gowns illuminated by pale soft lights. She swallowed something bitter. "Good night, Colonel."

She pulled her keys from her pocket, and quickly walked towards the driver's side door. She unlocked it, and Hayate jumped obediently into the passenger's seat. Riza threw the empty coffee cup into a nearby trash receptacle, and then slid into the driver's side. Roy watched as she turned the key in the ignition, and the car purred to life.

Riza leaned across the seat and rolled down Hayate's window. "Roy," she called to him over the hum of the motor. He was still standing in the same position, now the only person on the sidewalk. "I'm sorry. But if something happened to him, I'd never be able to forgive myself."

He nodded. "Nothing's going to happen to him, Lieutenant. I won't allow it."

"Promise?"

He hesitated. "Yes."

It was the best answer she could hope for.

* * *

Havoc stopped the car, sighing as he pulled the stick shift into park position. He glanced once at Ed, who was staring passively out the window. "You ready, kid?" he asked tentatively, nervous about the boy's condition. Even if Edward didn't complain about his head hurting, he could see the pain in his eyes. But the teen had made it perfectly clear he could wait for surgery; he claimed that he was fine.

This morning, the boy had put up a vicious fight. He wanted to get back to the investigation. _Now. _Another body had been found in Central city just that morning by a butcher taking out garbage. Ed had been particularly antsy, like he was being denied oxygen.

Ed nodded after a moment, forcing his emotions away. "Better now than never." He reached down to his side to unbuckle his seatbelt, and once that was done, remained sitting very quietly. It was clear that the both of them were reluctant to even think about getting out of the car; not when Central Headquarters' doors were waiting for them in earnest, a gaping mouth that represented the entrance to hell.

Jean shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ed."

Ed bit down on his lip hesitantly, as though he wanted to say something but was afraid of the answer. "Right." Without a further word and emanating disconnection and hidden frustration, he opened the passenger side door and went into bright morning sunshine. Jean stayed where he was, simply watching the teen as he stared at the pavement.

The sun glinted off of Edward's hair, making it appear like gold in the dull sunlight of the dawn; there was a brief instant where Jean had a sour feeling in his gut, almost like a premonition. He looked away in a flash, trying to forget. But the image stayed in his brain. He told himself that it was foolish. The blood running over the boy's body was a trick of the light. He was being paranoid. "Listen to me." he ordered gently, opening his own door and stepping out of the vehicle. He took a deep breath. "Please don't do anything stupid. Keep your head down, okay? Don't give him any trouble."

Ed started walking, each step weighing him down. "I won't," he promised. "I'll be fine. He can't touch me here."_  
_

"I know," Havoc said with a tender sort of relief he didn't feel. He managed a small smile, and then looked toward the heavens. He was searching for a sign; another piece of the puzzle that would tell his gut whether his foreboding intuition was right or wrong.

* * *

"Lieutenant," Riza accosted him as they entered the building. Havoc held up a hand to stop Ed, and then met the woman's gaze.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"The Colonel wishes to speak with you privately," she said briskly. "And Edward, they need you in the investigations department immediately."

Edward nodded, taking a final glance at Havoc and continuing down the long corridor alone.

Jean watched him go, suddenly filled with dread. "Lieutenant, is there something you want to say?" He asked when he realized she was still standing beside him.

"Yes," she said with some hesitation. "I wanted to talk with you about something disturbing I've noticed lately. Something about Edward."

* * *

Roy placed his coat on the back of his chair, and then looked around the empty office awkwardly. It was one of those days. The kind where you knew you should have at least tried to get some sleep the night before, but couldn't because for whatever reason, your thoughts wouldn't leave you alone. He felt indescribably numb.

Sighing, he sat down in his chair and glanced at the small clock on his desk. The time read 6:58. He had less than a couple minutes before the work day began. Hopefully (though the hope was slim), Hawkeye would have forgotten about their innocent conversation the night previously. And even more hopefully, he wouldn't be court-marshaled. He couldn't handle that.

He opened his desk drawer – the bottom one. The place where he kept his most private articles. He ignored the discarded bottles of Bacardi and cheap liquor – most were empty effects, anyway. What he wanted lie at the very bottom. He moved aside a few random objects, and picked up a wrinkled piece of cut construction paper. It was in the roughly hewn shape of a snowflake, with a sloppily glued picture of three smiling people in the center. Roy recognized the faces in the photo, and traced them almost lovingly.

_flash - fire - snow - whirling, gently...crash_

Then, as though coming out of a trance, he threw it into the nearest metal garbage can.

Elysia had made it for him. A long, long time ago. Perhaps a millennium had gone by since that Christmas day, but who knew? Who really _fucking _knew?

The door opened, interrupting his train of thought.

Havoc was fuming. "All right, you bastard. What the hell is all this shit Hawkeye's telling me about? Self-destructive behavior, are you kidding me? You're trying to chalk up the crap you've done to him as _self-abuse?_"

"Lieutenant," Roy said with a smirk, ignoring his anger and pretending it didn't exist. "Nice to see you today. Have a seat."

"Fuck you!"

"Well, thanks for the offer, but I'm already seeing someone. Now sit down, you son of a bitch, or I'll make you regret ever laying eyes on him to begin with."

Jean's fists were clenched, and he was breathing heavily. He narrowed his eyes. "What do you want?"

"I want to discuss something with you. Something I think you'll find quite interesting." Roy was smiling. "It concerns you, karma, and the fate of your future career."

* * *

"It wasn't a hard task to identify the body. You should have an idea of who she was based on the briefing Major Loki was supposed to have given you. Morgan Tate," Penny, the chief of the forensics team, explained as she walked around the lab. Ed followed close at her heels, eyes narrowed in disgust as he examined the stage two decomposed body just recently found in a dumpster in downtown Central. "Twenty-eight years old. We aren't positive how she died, but think it relates to severe bleeding in the brain."

"How can you tell?" Ed asked through his face mask. It was itchy and he didn't like the feel of it. "And was it caused by trauma?"

"She was probably hit by a blunt object." Penny pointed to the woman's head. "There were several fractures in her skull along with glass - there was a broken window at the crime scene, you may have observed."

"Haven't been the scene yet. And what about her eyes? They seem to have been gouged out by something, but we can't find them anywhere."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "There were traces of the molecule pseudoephedrine around the sockets, and slight puncture wounds. It indicates they were made with a needle; quite likely, one used for injecting methamphetemines."

He stiffened. "So our killer's a meth addict."

"It would seem so, Lieutenant Colonel," she said softly. "It was pre-mortis. She was still alive when the torture was inflicted."

He shivered. "Doctor," he murmured, staring at the bloated, milky flesh of the corpse, "you don't have to hold back with me, you know. If there's something you want to say, do it now. I'm not a little kid that needs to be protected."

"I'm aware," she whispered. "It's just that..." Her gaze lowered. "You recall, sir, that there were body parts on previous victims that were never recovered."

He nodded slowly. "Yes."

"Well - it occurred to me that these...certain parts might help us to form a broader picture of how the killer's mind works on a psychological scale. Some men have fetishes."

"I see," he said, almost to himself. He wandered around the table, looking the body up and down. She had blond hair. She was an immigrant from Crete. She had four children, now in foster care. She spoke three languages. Drove a Cadillac. Probably never went a day without smiling...

"He's cut off hands, limbs, teeth, eyes, and some things I don't care to mention. What the hell are his motives? That's what kills me. At first glance, you understand that all of his victims are young blonds, so it might be some kind of pent up sexual frustration." He closed his eyes, trembling for a moment. He swallowed. "Then again, none of the victims were ever raped. None."

"Could it be," Penny said as though choosing her words carefully, "that he knew someone with blond hair, and only liked the _idea _of killing that person? That he could never go through with it, and took it out on other people? Some might even go so far as to say that he felt obligated to stay 'faithful' to this person."

Ed shot her an incredulous look. "So you're implying that the killer has sexual relations with a girl, gets pissed at her every once in a while, and kills some innocent people for kicks?" he scoffed. Still, it was dangerously plausible. "And you're also saying that he never rapes his victims because he feels like it would be cheating on his girlfriend. Does he have a moral complex or what?"

Penny shrugged. "Who said it had to be a girl?"

"Nobody. Hey, I need you to do me a favor," he said, heading for the door. Penny pulled the forensic sheet over Morgan's body, and followed him. "Dye your hair black."

She looked shocked. "May I ask why, sir?"

"Please. Do it for me," he muttered. He opened the door for her, eyes serious. She was a bottle blond and that didn't settle right with him. Once they were both out, he pulled off his mask and threw it in the bio hazard bin. "I know it's stupid, but look at it from my perspective."

"I'll consider it," she said quietly. Then she turned to him and said, "What about you? Aren't you worried?"

Ed shrugged, biting his nails. "I don't care. I want him to find me, whoever he is. Because once he does, I'll kill him."

She smiled sadly down at him. "Don't get hurt."


	13. Omen

**Edited. Couldn't edit Paper Flowers because of parental blocks...I don't know why, because I can access a lot of chapters worse than that just fine. Weird. **

* * *

Havoc shut the door to Roy's office firmly behind him. When he was certain of being alone, he rested against the door. His ears seemed to be stuffed with cotton. The only thing that consoled him, kept him from crying out in bloody rage, was the sense of Edward's presence a few corridors down; soft and innocent and humble and warming.

_You understand, don't you?_ Memory's voice whispered in his ear, earning a painful cringe. An officer passed, sandy brown hair, and smiled. Jean smiled back, though it appeared more like a grimace on the face of the walking dead-

_"I'm not selfish, Lieutenant," the dark-haired man muttered, though the twitch of narrowing eyes said otherwise, "I just don't like it when people touch my things. Surely you can wrap your head around the implications." _

_Jean forced himself to keep cool, willing the air to resume circulating in his lungs. Hitting the kid was one thing, but referring to him as an object made his blood boil. Jean knew that Ed was depending on him for safety, but Roy's confidence indicated almost legal authority over the boy's mind and body. Maybe it was that frightening aspect that kept Jean's lips sealed and his eyes drawn to a scuff mark under the desk. _

_Roy smiled without showing his teeth. "What's the matter, Lieutenant? Something wrong?" _

_Jean looked at him. Silence pulled a thin curtain past his eyes. The office shadows melded together, resting peacefully under a yellow morning dawn, bright finger beams stabbing his eyes. "At the hospital. How much did you pay them to keep their mouths shut?" _

_A bored blink. "What does it matter?" _

_"It doesn't, I just want to know what the fuck you did to him." He tried to weld his eyes with steel, but it was tarnished. "And why you look so damn calm. I don't care what he said to you and I don't care what he did - there's no reason to beat a sixteen year old half to death-" _

_Roy laughed, though there was a hard edge to it. "So what are you going to do? File a report? Good luck with that, God knows how long it would be before anyone gave a shit." _

_"You touched him."_

_"And you drugged up a prostitute before fucking her," Roy said with a casual shrug. Ignoring the horrified tremble in Jean's body, he picked up a file on his desk. "Oh, yes. It's all in here. The circumstances are all pretty vague, of course, but it's still awfully clear that she wasn't in her right mind when you knocked her up against her will-"_

_"Bullshit!" Havoc interjected, slamming his fists down with a loud bang. Panicked anger rose at a high temperature, threatening to explode. The damn bastard had really dug far. "She knew exactly what was going on. We were in love, it's not her fault her parents are-" _

_"Still, pretty powerful stuff," Roy whispered, transparent sin fading in and out of his irises. He felt deliciously warm. "Think of all the things I could do to that pretty angel with that kind of medicine." _

_"You sick..." _

_"Don't tell me you've never wanted to let go, never wanted to feel him underneath you, never wanted to taste his tears. If you wait too long, all of that desire will boil over. You could hurt him."_

_"What are you?" _

_"Take my advice. Run off, never come back, forget about Fullmetal. You want to rent him for a little while, perfectly fine - just know that these charges won't disappear. You've got no choice in the matter. In the end, he'll always be mine, and you can't do a filthy fucking thing about it." Roy pulled the legal papers out of the file, and then tossed Jean the empty folder. _

* * *

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Ed muttered as the tall, white haired man went past him. He involuntarily shivered, pressing himself as close to the wall as possible. The man smelled like blood, which wasn't unusual given his occupation, but the blond couldn't help but feel strangely vulnerable in his presence. It was like he expected a familiar crossdressing serial killer to materialize. "You're being cleared."

"Thank you," Thomas Randon mumbled in reply. The legally blind man whistled to his seeing-eye dog, who paddled over to lick a heavily bandaged and bloody hand. Ed made a mental note never to eat meat from the man's shop.

The interrogation with the butcher who found Morgan's body turned up nothing. His dog had found the woman's body in the alleyway garbage. At feeding time, Thomas discovered pieces of the decomposing corpse in a metal dog dish. Edward insisted that the police delve further into his records, but the chief declined to let him do so. Now Martin Creme was watching from an office doorway, dark gray suit and shining bald head giving him a rather dull appearance.

Ed met his eyes briefly, and said to Thomas from the side, "Mr. Randon, you're free to go." Thomas nodded once, then walked forward with his dog leading the way. He muttered a terse thanks, feeling expectantly degraded at being handled and ordered around by a child. Ed was used to it.

At Creme's signal, he went to him.

"You wanted to talk to me?" He asked.

Martin's tone was grave. "You know they could hear you from the top floor, Fullmetal. Yelling at an innocent blind man isn't going to get you points with the higher ups. I hope you know that."

Ed shrugged, looking off to the side innocently. "What, you have a problem with my methods of questioning?"

"He looked like he was going to cry."

Ed stiffened for a moment. _Shit. _"Well...what did you expect me to do, let him go? The man's a fucking psychopa-"

"Language, Elric."

"Sorry...what I mean to say is...give me a break," Ed fumed, glaring in Thomas' direction. The man was sitting with a bored expression while a secretary asked him mandatory questions. The only sign of life was his weathered hand reaching to scratch the lab's ears. "_Look at him_. These people are getting carved up, he carves stuff up for a living! That's not suspicious to you?"

Creme sighed. His tone wavered briefly, voice lowering to a whisper. "You're stereotyping. You always do this. One of the greatest flaws in a detective is to draw from personal experiences and bias - I know for a fact that bad things have happened to you, but that doesn't give you the right to mentally scar witnesses. Please live up to the standards of the man that came before you-"

"Don't give me this goddamn speech again..."

"I'll give you this speech as long as it takes you to stop acting like a child and turning every assignment into a personal vendetta. Maes Hughes was the best we had and the answers to this case died with him. Thus far, you've done little to aid this case by showing immaturity."

Ed's eyes grew in slight protest, "But it's..."

"Is that clear?" Martin turned cold again. Ed reluctantly nodded, squirming under his hard stare. He respected Creme, knew him better than anyone in the investigations unit; but a small part of him hated the man as well. Despite every warning that he should stop acting like a kid, there was a kind of parental authority and restraint. An odd lingering protectiveness that showed even now.

"He killed my brother, sir."

"And if you're not careful, and don't stick to proper guidelines, someone else is going to get hurt. It could be you."

* * *

Young laughter. He tried to move; his eyes grazed a yellow sun, a crystalline beam flashing briefly before his eyes focused on a pair of children running through a grassy field. He reached out to touch long, pale yellow hair.

"Winry!" He yelled, but she was too far away. _Keep up,_His legs told him.

The world's colors turned vibrant; a pinwheel blowing in the breeze. The clouds moved at a quickened pace. His mother held sunflowers in her hand, and she waved at him. Spit second. Flash. Yes, a flash of gray and he saw a skeleton standing in the doorway while inhuman shrieks tore at his ears.

Back to normal, no skeleton, but the light this time was reminiscent of ultraviolet; everyone's eyes were dark, their intentions seemingly deviant.

He sat down at the kitchen table. It was set for two. His young hands, so unfamiliar, clutched at the tablecloth. "Mother, where's Alphonse?"

She ignored his question. His gaze travelled to the further corner of the room of its own accord; there was his brother, standing alone, face passive. The boy was holding a sunflower, but it had wilted in the harsh light of day.

"I've been calling you," Al whispered.

Ed blinked, unsure of what the statement meant.

"But you haven't answered me yet..."

A phone ran. The house was suddenly empty. A sour breeze wafted through the rotting wood of the home; dust coated the counters, the table, the rafters. The whole house was black. Gutted as though from fire, and ultimately dead.

Ed looked toward the phone. Something told him he should answer it. But he was confused. He looked once more toward the corner, but Alphonse was missing. In his place was a sunflower, bright and healthy and green. More phones began to ring.

He pressed his hands to his ears. He was older now, felt more like himself. But the vulnerability of childhood stayed with him, paired alongside the fragile innocence he desperately clutched at. "Stop." He pleaded, the ringing growing louder. There was children's laughter again, lenough to be a screaming wail, and voices and noise and whispers and sirens and -

Black shapes, crawling along the floor, reaching out, and - a hand grabbed his shoulder, and the darkness, it was everywhere, it was hot, it was suffocating, it was inside of him -

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!" He screamed. The world went black, and he opened his eyes. Creme was standing before him, a concerned look on his face. The man's hand was gently resting on his shoulder.

"Edward, are you alright?"

Ed shuddered, and then wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. He found he'd been crying hysterically, and in his sleep, no doubt. "S-sorry." He muttered, embarassed and still slightly shaken. Of course it had only been a nightmare.

"You were...shouting. And you said something about...well, I'm probably reading too much into it. Nevermind." Creme looked over at the table, at the folder spread across it. They were in the interrogation room. Ed had earlier requested some privacy, but it appeared the boy had really been asking for an excuse to put his head down. Martin decided not to say a word about it. "Having any luck?"

Ed shook his head. He was trembling, but tried not to attract much notice. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, feeling oddly cold. "No, sir."

Creme frowned. "The general's here to see you."

Ed's eyebrows creased in concentration. "Which one?"

"Hidel. The man that dispatched you in Ishbal."

His eyes narrowed. "The hell does he want? I haven't talked to him in months. Not since he cut psychological therapy and I told him to fuck himsel-" He stopped. Creme had shot him a warning glare. Ed changed his tone, and put on a false smile. "I mean, golly, I miss that guy."

Creme rolled his eyes. "Lieutenant Colonel, he wants five minutes to speak with you. I think you can spare it."

Ed shook his head, smile still painfully in place. "I'm not gonna like it."

Martin managed a grin. "I know."

* * *

Ed knew he had screwed up somewhere. His repertoire of past accomplishments was being overshadowed by his odd delay in finally solving the goddamn case that pervaded his every thought. He wasn't stuck.

No.

He was far from it...

"Lieutenant Colonel." Hidel sat in front of him. Ed fidgeted slightly in his seat, wondering why the man was gazing at him with such foreboding casual interest.

"General," Ed said back shortly. He couldn't help but glare; this _was_ the man who had ordered his assistance during the second rebellion because of his 'useful alchemical abilities.' "What brought you from your pedestal, old man?"

Hidel frowned for a moment, but disregarded the comment. Clearing his throat, he said, "I've heard rumors. Rumors that my participation in your safety have gone to waste - you realize you're not in any position to be slacking off?"

"You're wasting your time."

Hidel looked taken aback. "I assure you, this isn't a waste of my time at all." He looked more deeply into Ed's eyes, and the teen shivered, feeling as if his mind were being probed. "Quite the contrary."

"So...what?" Ed asked, leaning forward as he folded his arms for warmth. "I'm not fucking around, I'm working hard. Harder than any of those lazy bastards at the top of the ladder'll ever know. Trying to find out my desk job's not worth payment so you can force me on the field?" He trembled slightly, clenching his jaw so that his voice remained steady. "Well, good luck with that, because you all know I can't." It was why he had been assigned to investigations in the first place. Without alchemy, he was close to useless.

"No," Hidel murmured. "No, we're not going to put you out there again. I refuse to let that happen. But the fact is, at the moment war is the least of your concerns. I don't want to frighten you and I doubt I could, but if you can't keep your head above water they'll take matters into their own hands."

Ed laughed bitterly. "Didn't kill me then, they wouldn't kill me now-"

"You stupid child, of course they would. If it's in their interests and they find you more trouble than you're worth, the pity will end and you'll find a bullet in your head by the end of the week."

"Fine, fine. I've kept my mouth shut, why are you-"

"And you'll keep your mouth shut!" Hidel snapped. "If you can't, I'm not going to defend your life any longer in conferences. I'm at the end of my rope, Elric, going to great lengths to keep you alive. If you can't maintain a name for yourself, you're dead. You've got too much information in your head and they know that." He sighed. "Understand that I'm telling you this for your own protection."

Ed smiled wanly. "Care about me?"

"Not especially, no, but after what they did to you in that war..." He paused, shaking his head. "This is a selfish warning, Edward Elric, because in all honesty I wouldn't like to have your death on my conscience. As far as documentation goes, you do not exist. Let that statement sink in. Your family is dead, you have no relationships outside of the military. You are totally insignificant, totally without purpose."

"If I'm so insignificant, it's not exactly logical to go through so much trouble to kill me, is it?" He joked halfheartedly.

"Wrong," the man replied with a rather sick expression. "Don't take this the wrong way, but if they didn't murder you, there's plenty of demand for people like you in other...professions. And once you're in a trafficking system, it's impossible to find your way out."


	14. Shifting

**I hope the writing in this chapter isn't too weird for you guys or anything. :( And it's longer than most chapters, because I felt I should make up for the lack of updates. XD PLEASE REVIEW, I'll give you invisible cookies. **

* * *

The offices were empty. It was eleven o'clock at night, and mostly everyone had gone home. Only Hawkeye still lingered, busy filing last minute reports and basically doing the Colonel's work for him. Stubborn man. She swore that some day, he was going to have her tie his shoelaces, too. At least nowadays, Edward helped her out; it was unusual, because it wasn't exactly the fault of maturity that had sprung on him a few years too late. He seemed constantly guilty, or worried, or both, and for some reason that made him jump at the opportunity to do someone else's work while innocently putting off his own.

Riza bit down on her lip as the edge of a piece of paper made a violent gash in her thumbprint. She put it in her mouth, sucking lithely at coppery taste.

Maybe Edward was only trying to distract himself from feeling. Thinking tended to do that - make you forget about what really mattered. Then again, he had very little that mattered to him. A future? Gone with the wind. He was bound to the state, legally or not. Even college was out of the question, though she knew he was trying to get a permit to go to a Xing university once he turned eighteen. Visas were difficult to come by, even for a high ranking officer. Extremely difficult...every time a man spoke of leaving the country, the government thought it was an attempt at mutiny.

It bothered her. Hardly anyone knew about it on 'the inside' of the military, but the common folks' eyes shown plainly. The censorship, the militaristic brutality that occurred in the most pleasant communities. Oppression was at an all time high, but as usual, they all just pursed their lips and pretended such talk didn't exist.

She jumped as the door opened.

"Ed, I thought you'd gone home." She whispered, smiling gently at him. He shrugged.

"Everyone gone? Even the bastard?" He remarked, stifling a yawn. He went over to where she was, sighing dryly as though impatient, but very meticulously assisted her in the most subtle way possible. He avoided her gaze as he shuffled the papers, placing them in a box to be sent over to the shredder across the hall.

She nodded, deciding not to mention his obvious attempt at disguising it. "I believe he went for drinks." She said softly. "With General Hakuro."

More shuffling, rustling, the dry moonlight pooling. "And the Lieutenant?"

"Told me that he wanted you to call him on his cell phone if you couldn't make it home." She eyed him from the side. She noted that every movement was mechanical; an invisible shield covered his face, protected him from the harsh realities of the world. He always wore it. Despite the things he had seen as an alchemist, as a soldier, as an investigator - as a _child, _she reminded herself - that same stoic demeanor always shone through. Undeniable.

Her gaze shifted, following a slow falling drop of crimson.

Edward's eyes widened. "You're bleeding." He said quietly. His hand flicked out and ripped a few tissues from a kleenex box, and he handed them to her. She muttered thanks, and realized with a churning stomach that the finger was indeed dripping like mad. She sat down for a moment, wrapping the tissue around the wound and compressing gently. Edward sunk into a chair in front of her. She smiled sadly.

His posture was terrible.

"You okay?" He asked. He felt low; inside her head, Hawkeye must have been thinking him an idiot. For God sakes, it was a papercut. A scratch.

"Yes, fine. I have a tendency to forget things sometimes." She admitted. "I was too busy thinking about you, actually. How are you feeling? How's your head?"

He shrugged again, playing with his nails. He hated the worrying, the pointless worrying. He didn't feel like lying. "S'okay."

Hawkeye fixed him with a stern look. "You weren't doing anything reckless, were you?" Ed swore she looked like Winry in this light, and another stab of pain hit his conscience.

"No." He said, slightly puzzled. "Well...I mean, I was careless, yeah. Stupid. I just...got so distracted. _I _have a tendency to think too much, actually. Besides, it's not like I'm dead or anything. What's a little accident?"

"It's not that you got hurt that bothers me, Ed." Hawkeye said with a troubling quiet in her tone. "What bothers me is that when accidents keep piling up, it starts to feel unsettling. Understand? So if you know something, you need to tell me what it is."

Ed looked down at the floor. He had no inkling on whether or not she was actually suspicious of something crawling beneath the surface; but he was going to keep feeding her lies until she stopped pressing. It felt good, in a way; like he was being loyal. Like he had a purpose. He couldn't stand being hated by Roy any longer. Those rare, soft, subtle times when he was actually told, "I love you" seemed to make up for punishment, however pathetic the sentiment. It was _his _fault for starting so much trouble. He had to feel the consequences, he had to pay the price. Bending the truth was just a way of making sure he didn't get mixed up in things that didn't need to get mixed up in. "No, Lieutenant. I don't know what you're talking about."

Riza's face didn't shift. "Give me your arm." She ordered.

He looked up at her, backing into the seat reflexively. "Why?" He asked. Did she want to see evidence...? And what good would that do? He could just blame it all on accidents, on falls, on clumsiness. Him and his damn obsession with knocking into things...

She snatched his hand before he could stop her, and his breath hitched as she yanked the sleeve high to his elbow. He looked away, ignoring the faint trace of bruises that he had so desperately kept concealed from anyone but Havoc, though Havoc hadn't said a word. "Jesus." She breathed. They remained that way, in a kind of frozen limbo of silence, until she closed her eyes and said, "I'm sorry." She released him.

"What...why did...?"

"I was afraid that...that maybe you had been..." Her glossy eyes swept over his head, toward the moonlit windows and stretches of clouds behind glass. Shadows played about in the frail darkness, implying a scene that had mere silhouettes but no faces. Her lip trembled. "Hurting yourself, Ed."

"Someone told you that I'd..." He whispered hoarsely, trying to come to grips with it. It was numbing. He hadn't wanted her to be close to the truth, but now he discovered she was blocking out rationalization. She was nowhere near his secret, his fear. Or maybe she was. Maybe she was afraid to let that part of her mind accept it. He knew in his heart who had spoken that lie, had tried to cover up what was done.

Trust was a funny thing.

He jumped to his feet, and blinked back tears, throwing the remaining files (folder and all) into the shredder bin.

"Is it true?" Hawkeye questioned.

He didn't answer. He couldn't answer. There was something sick in his stomach and he wasn't sure what it was. The fever had returned. There was pain in his head, and blood in his mouth from biting his tongue so hard, and a hot, confused sensation spreading to the tips of his fingers.

"Edward, beating yourself for attention is not going to..."

He shook his head, drowning out her voice. Even if he wouldn't agree, he wouldn't deny, either. Roy could play his game. He didn't want to be a part of it.

"...It's wrong, okay? You can always talk to me if you have a problem, but you don't have to bottle it all up inside...my God, what if you killed yourself...?"

He whipped around to face her, blood rushing to his cheeks. "Listen, it's my business! My _problem._ There's nothing you can do so just forget it." He trailed off. "Just...forget it..." Exhaustion pooled in his senses, buzzing like a thick swarm of insects in his ears. He was in a dark jungle full of angry predators, and the last ray of sunshine had just peaked behind a cloud forever.

* * *

He had the window open. Black forest whipped by, a current of icy air streaming through the window. Edward leaned on his hand, staring into the headlights at the front of the car and feeling oddly dazed. He glanced once over at Havoc, who had spoken about three words since he had picked him up from headquarters.

Their temporary arrangement was still in place. It was bitter protection, but protection all the same. And one day it would have to end, but neither was willing to imagine the consequences.

"Ed." Havoc said quietly from the driver's side. The curvy roads didn't help his fatigue; every moment threatened his eyelids. He forced them awake, taking another sip of his extra large Sprite purchased at a Mobil about five minutes ago. "Sorry for being so late. I had to go home for a little while, called the insurance company. My sister's having a relapse. It's her first in a few months."

Edward nodded. "Okay."

Silence.

"You sure you're not hungry, kid? I could stop somewhere if you want."

Ed didn't respond much, blinking momentarily as he digested the question. "Oh - right. No thanks. I'm kind of..." He looked down, the grumbling of the car acting as a backdrop to his mixed, though entirely bland, emotions. His eyes widened slightly. "Havoc." He said with growing urgency. "Havoc, I think I'm going to be sick."

Jean pulled over on the side of the road without a second thought, and Edward tumbled out of the passenger's side. Havoc got out of the car but remained facing the other line of trees, pulling a cigarette from a box in his jacket pocket. He tried not to listen to the sounds of illness, and lit up, breath coming in thick waves of smoke on the cold wintry air. Glancing up at the stars, puffing out a steady stream of poison, he could see small breaks in the billowing clouds where stars shone through.

Fiery red ash fell from the cigarette onto pavement, and then it was all over.

Edward walked around the car toward him, arms drawn across his chest. His body was shivering intensely. He wiped at his mouth with his sleeve, sniffing slightly in the freezing cold. He leaned across the car windows besides Havoc, not saying a word, embaressment crossing his face like an angry red paint.

Jean handed him a stick of gum. "You okay?" He asked monotonously, not looking him in the eye.

Edward took the gum, but left it in its metal sheath. "Perfect." He whispered. "But shitty."

Jean took another drag on the cigarette, hearing a car coming on the other side of the bend. "It's supposed to be cold like this for the next two weeks. For Christ's sake. It's almost April, and we're getting January weather."

"Yeah, well. You can never trust the seasons. They always change."

"Like people." Jean said reflectively. He took one last puff, and then threw the stick down on the wet street. He smashed it under his foot, the incoming car passing by in a blend of colored lights. Then it was gone.

"No." Ed replied. He started over to get back in the car. "Not like people." He slid in through the open car door, then slammed it shut. He unwrapped the piece of gum, but didn't throw away the metallic paper. Instead, he shoved it in the pocket of his uniform.

"And why's that?" Havoc asked. His hands met the cold steering wheel just as he pulled his own door closed. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, and then they were on road.

Edward chewed his gum thoughtfully. "People aren't easily classified. They're not hot or cold. Not good or bad. They're all just dead inside, waiting for their physical bodies to catch up."

"That's a morbid interpretation."

Edward didn't say anything, feeling the warmth of the wrapper through his shirt. For some reason, the glint reminded him of Al; there was a shoebox in their bedroom at the apartment, and it contained the saved gum wrappers, aluminum soda tops, foil, he had saved over the past few months. He didn't know what he'd do with all of the saved metal. Maybe he'd just throw it away. Maybe he'd leave it there for the next owner.

Or maybe he didn't have a plan. Just an empty space he wanted to fill.

* * *

Roy hated these meetings. They happened about twice a month. Some full-of-himself General would gather all of the prominent officers and invite them out somewhere. To a bar or club, or rarely, dinner at a fancy establishment Roy couldn't pronounce. Luckily, tonight's get together was relatively low key, and he hadn't even been required to dress for the occassion. It was a small bar just south of Viscan Avenue, where he lived. Nontheless, it was clean, and held a refutable reputation.

"So." Frank Archer said, displaying that kind of drunkeness where you squint your eyes and say things with more force than neccessary. He clapped Roy on the shoulder, and the dark-eyed man stiffened in indignation. He himself had been holding off on alcohol tonight; a rarity for him, but he remained sober for the benefit of Hakuro and the fact that he had been assigned designated driver for the evening. It was a fact he detested but accepted without superficial grumbling. "How's work for you, Colonel?"

Archer's icy eyes glinted.

Roy raised one eyebrow, and gently shrugged him off, raising a glass of amber liquid to his lips. "It's the same as it's ever been. Invigorating and annoying at the same time."

"You talking about your subordinate, or your job?" Archer snickered. There was a murmur of laughter around the table. Smoke poured in from every orifice; Roy found it hard to breathe. He never was much of a smoker, even if he did do it on occasion. When he was really, really out of it.

"Yeah, Mustang." Hakuro said, eyes bloodshot and red and mad with an alcoholic fever. It was well known that the General had become quite the drinker lately, especially after his involvement with Ishbal. Rumor was that he had taken part in a heinous war crime, though was never convicted. His hair was falling out in all the wrong places and his cigarette was limp and half-ash in his pale fingers. "You screwing Hawkeye?"

Roy shrugged carelessly, the bluntness of the question unsurprising at a table full of drunken military bastards. "That's confidential." He humored them with a smile. Archer hid a snort. "I've been thinking of asking her out _formally, _but I'm not particularly good at things of this...caliber."

"Bullshit. A year ago, you had women eating out of the palm of your hand." A lower class officer muttered. Roy's mind was somewhat fuzzy; he couldn't put a name on him, but figured it probably wasn't important. The guy was about twenty-two, very young, very eager. A damned son of a bitch who wasn't _active_ yet.

Roy grunted slightly, swirling the liquid in his glass with curiosity. The kid would learn eventually.

"And how's Edward? You're keeping him on a tight leash, like I asked?" Hakuro wondered, smile grim but eyes laughing.

Roy cringed inwardly, remembering perfectly well that trifle of an order given to him all those months ago. "He is always on my mind and I never let him escape it. He has forced himself to forget everything - everything that you don't want him knowing. Does that satisfy you?" It had better. Edward was a touchy subject at these meetings; dwelled on briefly, albiet, but still dwelled on. He was something and yet nothing.

"Yes." Hakuro said, peering over the rim of his mug cautiously. "Yes it does. Archer, what do you think of the oil industry? It's picking up. I think the State is going to try to overtake the Bostun Bor Mine town in south Crete this..."

There was a faint buzzing in Roy's pocket. "Excuse me, I have to take a call." He said, but there was no need, because no one was paying him any attention. He put the phone to his ear and a finger in another to drown out the bar sounds as he made his way outside into the cold wintry air.

The sudden silence and change in volume was near-defeaning. He removed the finger.

"Hello?" He said into the small mouthpiece. The streets were empty. His nose was offended suddenly by lack of smoke; the air was just_ too _clean.

"It's Charlie."

Roy's heartbeat quickened. In truth, he had mixed feelings about this conversation occurring now of all times. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Not much. I'm only checking in, seeing how the weather is. Does that bother you?"

"No. Are there new shipments, is that why you're calling me...?"

"No, it's not why I'm calling you, though there are new shipments. Warehouse thirteen at Marchester Meadows carries three crates of cold medicine, understand? Talk to James at the front and tell him you're an investor. They'll let you in. Now, listen carefully, because I'm very rapidly switching the topic of discussion and I don't want to repeat myself."

Roy obeyed. A small snowflake fell on his jacket and melted.

"Three things: A, the seasons are changing. B, you and Hawkeye look nice together, go out with her and make sure she stays as far away from Edward as possible. Finally, for C. Get promoted." There was a click of the line going dead. Roy looked at the phone in puzzlement.

Marchester Meadows. He had been there before. But that had been on an investigation, before he had started using the drugs he prolifically acted against. All in all, it sounded promising.

But the _seasons are changing_? Hell, was it a riddle or something? He didn't know. The second was just ridiculous in a sense, though he could see the benefits it would bring. And C...C was simply something he was already aiming for, hence the meetings he attended, the volunteerism to abstain from drinking.

Shrugging, he went back into the bar, where a raucous game was going on. He sat quietly in his seat and watched, not caring and not feeling.

* * *

Alphonse stared at him. Placidly. Almost like a mirror image, except not. Edward reached out to touch him, but felt only air and soft snow. Cathedral bells rang overhead, dismal in the blackness that was the church. Alphonse was the only source of light, the only glow in the night.

"What's going on?" Ed asked, taking a step forward. His feet didn't meet hard, echoing marble as he'd expected; no, this was gray ash. Gray ash coated the floor of the ruined cathedral, splintered, blackened wood acting as a skeletal frame. Thick shatterings of glass were the only color in the room, scattered among themselves on the floor in a crisscrossed rainbow pattern. "You're bleeding." He muttered emotionlessly, staring at Al's feet. His brother was wearing no shoes, and the glass had cut him. Blood dribbled down.

Al slowly bent his head downward. "So are you." He whispered.

Edward gave him an incredulous look, but felt no pain. "No, I'm not, I'm..." The words died in his throat. A hollow ringing sound grew in the air. It reminded him of heaven, death, angels, crying, weeping, despair, and a holiness above all else. Who knew? It was just the sound of nothing and everything, he supposed. Like what you would get if you combined all the noises and prattlings of the world, it was what you would get at the end. A chorus of eternity.

Without thinking, he rushed to his brother, pulling his warm body close. Al did not resist, but did not move, either. "My God." Edward whispered, tears streaking down his face. He ran shaking fingers through his brother's hair. "I don't care if this is a dream, I don't care...it feels real..." He sniffed, voice echoing around the silent church. "It feels real, so how can it not be..?" He stiffened, heart thudding in his chest.

The ringing had ceased. Everything had ceased. Al's breathing had ceased, his body hard and cold and dead. He hung limply in Edward's arms, eyes closed.

Ed was too stunned to move. "No." He cried out at last. "No, no, no!" He screamed into the darkness, denying death, denying the universe, denying himself. Out of the quiet an explosion penetrated, and he was sucked into oblivion, into twilight and midnight and sunrise; cold hunger sucked at him, black shapes darted about, and a million worlds rose and fell. The church was rebuilt before his eyes, and yet no time passed.

It was a whirling, neverending cycling of chaos.

And when it was over, and his eyes were shut tight, and Alphonse was gone from his arms - he heard weeping. He opened his eyelids, and looked toward the source of the crying. There were two figures on the stone floor. One was dead, and the other was in horror struck grief. Edward couldn't move. Fear flickered in his eyes as the sobbing figure met his gaze coldly; all remorse was gone. The figure smiled grimly, and then hell broke loose once again.

Time reversed itself. Fire consumed him.

_It's over._

For the second time in a day, Edward Elric woke up to the sound of his own screams, the thin blanket stretched over his frame in the night. The cold of the couch soothed his sweating, shaking body. His head darted around, swiveling to find out just where he was. He swallowed, finally coming to rest on a shadow sitting on the floow beside him. "H-Havoc?" He whispered.

Jean frowned, caressing his head gently, brushing back his hair. "Edward." He said, voice soothing. "I think it's time I got you help."


	15. Release

**Don't yell at me for this chapter. I'm not sure, but things feel like they're going too fast and too slow at the same time. Is it just me? There's a non explicit sex scene next chappie, but I'm sure no one gives a damn.  
**

**I told myself I wouldn't do this, but I was so excited to see triple digit reviews that I'm congratulating mrawgirl09 for being the 100th reviewer. I'm probably damning myself by doing it because it's never going to happen again, but there you go. Yay. **

**Big changes in this chapter I know I'm going to regret. So don't yell at me too much, m'kay? I went through hell trying to come up with ideas that fit what's actually happened in the plot so far. It's going to get better and angstier if possible. And then all the questions will be answered. I just have to develop the plot first because I actually care about things like that. XD  
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**(Does anyone read these things or am I just wasting the word count?)**

**Some stuff to think about: **

**-Havoc's living room now mysteriously has a hardwood floor. Sarah didn't like the idea of carpeting. She's weird like that. I figured it didn't matter anyway.  
**

**-I realized what's wrong with my sentence structures. Too many commas. Oops. **

**-There's an excess of symbolism and imagery in this fic. **

**-I talk too much.  
**

* * *

Ed sat on the couch, shaking off the cold chill of nightmare while the moonlight glistened off of the hardwood floor. The clock ticked especially slowly, the short hand resting at three AM. Havoc was on the phone speaking in hushed conversation with Dr. Martin. Ed didn't listen to the words being spoken if he could hear them. Instead he stared ahead, sweat dripping down his face.

"I just don't know what to do," Havoc was saying, "He's gotten a lot worse..."

And what did _worse _mean? How could things have possibly gotten _worse_? Ed curled into himself on the sofa. He wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but Havoc wouldn't hear of it. He supposed he should be listening more intently to the conversation on the phone but all of his focus was on the bottle of Advil stashed in the upper pantry.

Jean eventually hung up the phone, and went into the living room. Ed didn't look up.

"Get your jacket on." Havoc said grimly. "We need to get to the emergency room and then after that, Dr. Martin's suggested you take a rest." He received an open-mouthed stare.

"At what, like a mental institution?" Ed was only half-serious when he said it, but the look on Havoc's face confirmed the worst. Edward cursed. "You think I'm insane, is that it?"

"No." Havoc said immediately. Ed wasn't taking this as well as he might have hoped. "It'd only be for two weeks, and I'm not forcing you to." He said it a little too quickly, and found that it sounded foreign even to his own ears. He expected the kid to shout at him, but when Ed spoke, his voice cracked.

"I'm not crazy, Havoc."

He was trying to convince himself more than anything. The nightmare felt so persistently real that it was difficult to shake off. Everything felt wrong and foreboding, as though at any minute, the world would end. Were the rampant thoughts running through his head a sign of something finally going wrong inside him? And if that were true, was he doomed to a psyche ward for the rest of his life?

"I know you're not, Ed. I'm just trying to do what's best for you."

"Since when do you rule my life?" Ed snapped, voice rising despite his best efforts to control himself. He stood up suddenly, fists clenched. "What makes you think you can decide every little thing for me? I barely knew you before last week. Just because I needed supervision doesn't mean you can fuck around...doesn't mean you get to..." He turned away, hiding his tears by putting a hand over his eyes.

He didn't know why he was biting Havoc's head off. It just felt like the only option. He was trapped underwater and he was going to drown.

"You're going over the line." Havoc said, growing slightly concerned. Ed was wavering where he stood. All of the boy's energy seemed concentrated on making sense of a helpless situation.

"How?"

"When have I ever controlled you?"

"All the time...you want to know where I am, who I'm with...you're just like _him_...except you don't hit me, but it's only a matter of time..."

Havoc shook his head in disbelief. He was beginning to regret his decision in allowing Ed to take a double dose of Nyquil. "You just had a severe concussion. We agreed that I'd watch you for the time being until you're ready to be on your own again. Without Alphonse around, you're all alone."

"Al has nothing to do with this." Ed said, a little too defensively. He knew Al wasn't being insulted, but the mere mention of his name unearthed unspoken memories.

"All I'm saying is, you've been through a lot and you need to..."

"You don't know the first goddamn thing about me."

"I know you better than you think."

"No." Ed shouted, suddenly incensed beyond reason. "You have no idea what the hell he's said to me. What the hell _they've _said to me, what I've done, and what they..." His hands were shaking. He tried to steady himself with slow breathing, but the slower he breathed, the more clearly his memories presented themselves. He could almost _smell _blood now. He saw dead eyes, dead faces, his own face, his own eyes, Al's eyes - damn it - and all the while the feeling of being abused and tormented when no one could hear him crying for help. "You don't have a clue."

There was just one man on the entire godforsaken planet who could empathize and share his torment - two partners, one victor, one victim, one paradox, a thousand lies all bound together and strung up around them to make it official.

Havoc sighed. "Let's all just calm down for a minute." He said. He sighed in exasperation, running his hands over his face. "We'll talk more about this later on, when you're ready to face everything a little more clearly..." He made a move toward the teen, ready to get him up and dressed and in the car before something else happened. But Ed shied away.

"Why is it that everyone wants me to just disappear?" Edward choked out, tears streaming down his face. "They'd rather act like…like..."

Jean's heart sank like a stone. He wanted to deny it, but it was the truth. Whether it was right or wrong he had to admit that there were those who liked to stay out of a mess if they could help it. Ed wasn't their problem or their burden to bear. Havoc was afraid to compare their judgments with his own. By condemning Ed to psychiatric treatment, would he be hiding under a rock, the definition of a hypocrite?

"I'm sorry." Ed said at last, softly. "I shouldn't...talk about this again..." He turned to stone, hard as a rock and with the same emotional capacity. He made to turn away and walk into the kitchen, deciding to take a few more sleeping pills to calm his nerves. But Havoc caught him by the shoulder, daring to ask before the question left him.

"Is this about Mustang? About what he did to you?"

Ed stiffened for a moment, and then shrugged him off indignantly. He ignored the question and went to the cabinet above the stove, opening it and pulling out a small bottle of pills. He slid a few into his open palm and then tilted his head back to swallow them dry. Jean simply watched him from the doorway, deciding to keep a closer eye on him now that he was drugged.

"It is, isn't it?"

Ed shot him a brief glare before brushing past him into the living room. He wordlessly slid his feet into his converse shoes, and tied them, tucking the laces into the tongue.

"You're so used to people doing nothing...I have to wonder...how long it's been happening..." Jean's eyes took in the room without really seeing it, and he concentrated on his memories. Edward at eleven, thirteen, fifteen. What had changed? What had escaped his attention? And were there _others_? During the war, someone might have hurt him. But that was ridiculous. He would have mentioned...

"What does it matter?" Ed finally muttered, sliding on his blue jacket. Havoc had washed the blood from it earlier. "Really. Don't even worry about it."

"Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

"You just took a triple dose of Tylenol PM, you're _not_ going out alone."

"Bite me." Edward growled, hand going for the door knob. He hesitated, eyes burning, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. His head felt like it was about to split in two. Nagging suspicion dwelled in his brain, preventing him from opening the door. He waited for the truth.

"Ed." Havoc began, words spilling from his lips before he could stop them, "I know you're confused, and you have a right to be. But before you go out and do something stupid, I want you to know something. I'm just not sure how to say it." He couldn't stand seeing the kid cry. He just couldn't. And after the hellish circumstances of the past few weeks, he realized that it was crushing Ed from the inside out. Ed was strong, but that made him all the more vulnerable after being conquered.

Havoc remembered Roy's warning, and the thick envelope on the dresser upstairs.

Edward was shaking. "And what's that?"

Jean opened his mouth, and then closed it. "Nothing, Ed. It's nothing." He said gently, seeing only the back of Edward's head, and the loose blond hair that fell past his shoulders. There was a looming shadow in his conscience, something dark that he had so far ignored. He shuddered as he imagined the things that must have happened to the boy to keep his pocket full. "I'm sorry."

Two words hardly compensated for the weight behind them. Jean knew that.

Havoc took him gently by the shoulders, mentally forcing him to look him in the eyes. _Please, just look at me. _"I can help you. But I think that putting you in professional care for a while is going to be the defining factor, okay?"

"Right." Ed said monotonously. He managed a brief smile. "Because that's what this is all about. Happiness, right? Helping, right? You want me to just go quietly..." He looked down, briefly, and then back up, the smile vanishing into thin air. "Fuck you." Without thinking, he aimed a hard punch at Havoc's face. Jean let him go, falling backwards. He was surprised by the fury in the assault, and tasted warm blood in his mouth.

Ed looked at him on the ground for a moment, guilt and revulsion in his eyes. He opened the door quickly, but Havoc remembered how many pills he had taken. He made a grab for the teen's arm, and managed to lock him in a tight hold. Ed wrenched away from him, gooseflesh spreading along his body from the unwarranted contact. "Don't touch me." He said darkly, and then ran out into the night. He vanished from sight, and Jean didn't have the energy or the will to chase after him.


	16. Pieces

**Edited and vastly improved.  
**

* * *

He felt trapped, like a bird, and the sound of his feet hitting the pavement seemed to remind him that he was still _alive_ - he could ignore desperation, grief, sadness, because those were emotions and emotions were trivial when it came to the breath of life stretching his lungs to capacity.

Back in that house he'd just had to get away. Jean's intentions were innocent and maybe a psyche ward would do him some good. They were hard to break out of and hard to break into, which would mean safety, but at the same time, he'd be sacrificing dignity, his last scraps of sanity, lose his career and perhaps give Mustang the opportunity to do the unthinkable. He was still technically underage - if Mustang tried adopting him, he'd have no choice but to -

No. He couldn't. He wouldn't. And telling the godforsaken truth was out of the question; too hard to admit, and God knew he didn't need the attention. He didn't want that bullet in his head, didn't want to be sold off to less careful hands. Even Roy feeling him up from time to time was a hundred times better than hell.

A thin layer of snow had accumulated in the past few hours, sugar-dust on the grass blades. As he ran past the houses of the subdivision, the snow melted; drops of water falling from gutters and rooftops in a wet haze, refreezing as the temperature dipped back and forth.

He ran across the train tracks, feet crunching the dirty slush and tire tracks. He was far enough away now (_far away from what?) _but didn't have a clue where he was headed. His body said it wanted warmth and his brain said it wanted ice. He wanted to go home, and crawl into Al's bed, and linger in safety, in safety and bliss and solitude. Of course, his desires left nothing to be desired.

He was payment. He was something - some _thing _that needed to be tied down and beaten. Havoc might have tried to prevent that, but you couldn't teach a dog disobedience. He knew far too many tricks already.

If he did go home, he would lock the door, and find all of the medication in the house - all of it, all hidden - and swallow, curling onto Al's old blankets. Then dream and illusion would become swift reality, and he wouldn't feel the weight of uncertainty at his shoulders.

A great plan, but...

Did he really want to _die? _

* * *

The darkness hemmed him in as he skirted along the cemetery's weather beaten path. The gravestones stood out like leering shapes, and he was hard pressed to keep from bumping into them. His plan was simplistic and admittedly naive: The drugs were steadily taking effect. Sweet, heady nausea lumped in his throat, pressing on his gag reflexes. It would be comfortable on Al's grave.

Very comfortable indeed. Perhaps, if he wished hard enough, he was only a nap away from seeing his brother's face. An achingly tantalizing thought, and one he had always opposed. He'd promised. _I won't die until I find out who killed you. _Maybe there wasn't a killer; maybe the whole fucking world was crazy, and it didn't matter in the end how many victims became victims too early. He was still a waste of carbon, and so very used.

...God, how hard had he hit Je-?

Edward stopped, frozen in time, imagining ghosts. Sick scents wafted across the dead ground, filling his nose and troubling his spirit. Memoirs spilled over the bank. He knew already, and he didn't even have to see the man's face. The only question was why.

Roy.

Alone and reeking of alcohol even at a distance. Maybe if he was careful, he could slip away into the shadows, unnoticed among any but the trees. But Roy had good hearing; he had intuition. He could pick up the smell of his prey a mile away, fresh hope ready to be snuffed out like the match head.

On cue, the man looked up from the fourteen year old's grave. No emotion crossed his eyes, no flicker of guilt or resentment or dumb lust. Just fatigue, though his nostrils flared, predictably picking up the scent of young blood. "You're out late. Come here."

Edward shivered, folding his arms across his chest, letting his jacket sleeves cover his knuckles and fingers. He was two sizes too small. He didn't respond, praying - though he didn't pray - that Roy would just suffer his loneliness alone for a change. The dizzying nightmare unfolded before his very eyes, becoming more real with every breath, with every tremor, with every second.

"I said come here."

He looked off to the side, lips a thin line, then parted, and then went over to the bent man covered in snow dust. Freezing ice managed to work its way into his shoes, numbing his ankles; secretly he wished the rest of his body would become equally numb, spared from the flinching heat of Roy's fingers suddenly at his wrist.

"What are you doing here?" Roy pulled the blond down beside him, his arm settling behind. "Why aren't you with the Lieutenant?" The blond's complexion was almost blue in the moonlight, cold smoke in his mouth, his body shaking and trembling.

Roy pulled Ed closer, snow flurries landing on the boy's cotton jacket. Ed was in a state of permafrost, catatonic at most and unresponsive at least. Roy pulled him back onto his lap, warming his face and his lips in blond hair. Ed still clutched himself, limp and staring at the headstone's engravings. White letters on white stone. Permanent.

Roy looked down at his vodka bottle, and numbly realized that it was empty. Certainly irritating. He stared at it for a moment, confused, and then abruptly realized he was holding onto Fullmetal rather tightly. To his agitation, the boy hadn't spoken a word, and he longed to hear sweet words. _Just let me hear your voice. Let me feel you breathe_.

Roy sighed, fingers slipping into the warmth beneath Ed's jacket, soft cotton tingling his nerves. "I don't know why. One minute I'm by the river, trying to find the bottom of this bottle, and the next I'm sitting here in the dirt." He laughed. Ed flinched.

"Why?" The teen asked, ignoring the cold sensation of lips at the back of his neck. Roy made a sound, low and dark and deep, as though savoring rich chocolate. Another kiss made the blond's head feel heavy, warm pain throbbing in his eyes; vulnerability...

Was such a bitch.

"Not sure," Roy mumbled, smelling his hair. Distinctly like cinnamon tonight; unusual. It just wasn't Ed - Edward was more of a bran than a cinnamon. Not sweet. Just there. Just like waking up. Just a staple, something necessary, something needed. No, Edward smelled like Havoc, and Havoc's house, and Havoc's shampoo, and Havoc's body, and Havoc's bedsheets and cum. "You can't blame me for wanting to see Al. I loved him too, you know."

"If you ever touched him-"

"Love comes in all kinds of forms," Roy murmured, "Sometimes it's platonic. Paternal. Maternal. Fraternal...and sometimes..." He stopped. It was getting warm. Hypothermia, maybe. Then another touch, another whimper, his need getting stronger, like a vampire addicted to blood - addicted to - well, he knew. It wasn't skin-deep.

Suddenly his stomach turned, felt good, felt so damn good, and the frantic sounds of breathing and struggle filled the cold lonely air. In all of two seconds, he was on top of the blond, pinning his wrists on either side of his head, closing his eyes as the boy's chest heaved underneath his sensitive body. "You have - no idea what you do to me, Edward," Roy whispered, close to tears, dropping his head and cutting of a shrill scream that vibrated his jaw.

The trees dropped more melted snow, but as it fell, it froze, a sheet of ice, a blade, an appendage, so easily breakable.

"Don't scream," Roy pleaded, panting and pressing himself further to the ground, attracted to gravity and attracted to terror. A single silver tear caught on the teen's lashes, and he closed his eyes, aching to become part of the grave. Wet snow soaked through his jeans and the thin fabric of his jacket, and he was alone -

God, he was _alone. _

"No, Colonel, God _no_..."

The temptation was there, it was _there_, it was staring at him through the reflection in Ed's breathtaking eyes. But he didn't say a word. He calculated. He was a machine. Just a thought. How far away was civilization? How far could a scream travel during the winter?

If they were found, he'd have to k-

But he looked down, and saw Ed, waiting for an answer. Tired, frightened, slender fingers curling and uncurling for lack of the strength to do otherwise, hair strewn softly about his shoulders, under his back, his spine so curved, so delicate, so fragile. Roy knew he had the power to hurt him, to kill him, to make him fucking _writhe. _

But so damn innocent. So damn pure. As his looks darkened, as he felt the tight pain of psychotic hunger paralyze his body, Edward stayed still, so much like a child, waiting for the adults to move the pieces. The game had undefined rules.

Roy could feel Ed's heart beating. Could almost _hear _it, thudding just above the space between his legs, pushing blood to every artery and every muscle and every scrap of fucking tissue. He was in love with someone so obviously human - made of the same stuff at any rate - but also angelic, demonic, deadly.

Maybe it was a challenge; maybe he liked fucking with fate. Maybe he was giving the world the finger. He didn't know. It just made sense-

"Let me go..." Ed said, narcotics mixing in with his serum like poison. "Please let me go..." He regretted leaving the warmth, the comfort, the safety, of Jean's living room. Maybe if he hadn't lost his head - just settled down under some blankets and watched television. Television. If only he'd listened to Jean. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe he deserved a rest - away from the world.

In a straight-jacket.

Away from Roy.

Away from that fucking touch.

Away from all of the cruel, cruel things he didn't understand and didn't want to understand; what he wanted, what they wanted, why he was wanted. Wanted so badly; what drove the familiar and unfamiliar to crave him like a drug.

No one ever asked him - no one _thought _to ask him - what he wanted. No one ever bothered to stop screaming at him or fucking him long enough to say-

"No!" He protested, twisting his head, his body, kicking hard.

"Yes, keep moving, god damn it," Roy whispered, for the sake of holding an erection in such a cold atmosphere and for the sake of the kid's health. Moving was a necessity. If he thought about it, he was saving Edward's life.

"Don't touch me…" Ed managed to reply, breathing as he sobbed. The snow stung his neck and his back, salt drying painfully on his face. He couldn't scream. All he could say was no, no, no. Over and over, seeing Al and his innocent face, wondering what he would think if he could see. "Please, not here, not here-"

Roy put a finger to the teen's lips, drunken eyes desperately trying to focus on him. He was torn; bloody fucking torn. He couldn't fool himself into thinking otherwise. His little angel really was just a child after all. "Edward," he whispered, his body shifting into the smaller. He hissed through his teeth, warming his hands, his fingertips in cotton warmth. But the damn kid wouldn't stop crying.

And, God. He hated it. He really fucking hated it, because of how frightened and hurt and betrayed the blond's eyes appeared; Ed wouldn't look away. He just kept staring, full on in the face, and he kept seeing - he kept seeing - those same eyes, in an eleven year old face, in the face of someone he wouldn't dare touch.

God, what had started all of it?

"You don't want your brother to see, do you?" Roy asked shakily, every other syllable quaking and teetering on the edge of psychotic. Ed kicked at him, helpless screams rebounding off of the gravestones and trees, dirt squelching between their clothes. His fingertips touched the cold edge of the brass button on Ed's jeans - the blond screamed, the sound tearing through the man's heart like it was tissue paper. He forced back the clog of tears, clasping the blond's jaw tightly, "If you don't shut up, I'm going to have to kill you, Edward..."

Ed's lip trembled involuntarily. Too damn cold. "Colonel, please." His words alone wouldn't break the mask. Roy was totally passive, totally hard against the world. He let out a breathy sob. "You've known me for years, Colonel," he stuttered out, "Why are you doing this to me?"

* * *

"Riza, I'm sorry to bother you so late at night."

"Not at all. I was up reading. Is everything okay, Lieutenant Havoc?"

"I wasn't going to call but Ed's run off. I thought he might drop by your place. He needs medical attention - I don't want to worry you..."

"You're doing a poor job of that."

"If you see him, get him to a hospital."

* * *

"You need punishment, Edward. You are sin personified. Don't you understand that? This is all happening because of _you,_" Roy said softly. Ed struggled halfheartedly beneath him, his frantic breathing muffled by the thickness of the man's coat. "Everything is your fault. I should be commended for - for resisting you, all these years..."

"That's what you called _resisting_?" Ed shrieked.

Roy smacked him hard across the face, and tore a strip of cloth quickly from his own shirt beneath the coat. Without waiting for a response, he shoved the cloth in Edward's mouth, effectively muffling any further vocalized interruption. Lovely.

Roy shoved him hard into the granite, causing him to gasp in pain. The man didn't relinquish his hold, and repeated dangerously, "_I want you to want this._" Ed didn't reply, and it only incensed the man more. With an unnecessary amount of brutality, Roy flipped the teen's body around again. The side of Edward's head collided with the gravestone.

* * *

"I see. Do you think you should call the police?"

"No, he'll be fine. I'm about to go out and look for him myself. I'm sure I'll find him, don't worry about it."

"Well, goodnight Lieutenant Hawkeye."

"Goodnight...Jean."

* * *

"Fuck, stop!" Ed shrieked, spitting out the cloth, head in a thousand pieces, blood running through his hair, excruciating agony ripping through his insides, outsides. He collapsed, listening to the groans and grunts of the man within, shuddering in great hot spasms.

_What am I doing? _Roy thought, letting out another sound of exhilaration. _God, I love it when he screams, but I hate it, I hate it and love it. No. He's twelve damn it. Fifteen. Sixteen. Does it matter? _

While being repeatedly violated, torn apart from the inside, Edward couldn't help but remember the strangest things; couldn't help but feel Alphonse's ghostly eyes. What would he be thinking if he were actually here, among the gravestones? Would he be angry? Protective? Or ashamed that his brother was so…weak, and pathetic and disgusting?

Roy panted over him, inside of him, around him. He simply closed his eyes and waited for the storm to recede. He dug his nails into the grass until they were black with dirt.

_I'm not crazy…_

He gritted his teeth in what looked like a rather pained smile. He wasn't crazy, no, not at all. This was pain, but it was tangible; unlike the mental darkness in his head. He could at least feel the warmth of another body. He could not, however, put a name to the cloudy haze that persistently crawled in his nightmares…

Blood coated his body, his chest, his legs, his hair. Maybe imaginary, but he couldn't breathe. His heart didn't want to beat; it was a car without oil. He tried to reach out toward the grave, but the mess was too thick. "Oh, God, Al...help me..." He cried. "Help me..."

Roy sighed deeply, stroking back a lock of the boy's sweat-dampened hair. "Tell me you love me." He said, craving the mere thought of the words spilling past Ed's defenses.

"I..." Ed stuttered, rapidly on the verge of a fresh set of tears, "I'm sorry, Colonel, I just can't..."

But it was all over. Edward lay back in the dusting of frost, half exposed to the cold air. He still couldn't move, and simply sucked in a breath as the man pulled out of him. It hadn't been a pleasurable experience for either of them. Just a battle of dominance and that was all. And now that Roy knew he had his control, he came to understand the gravity of the crime. Strangely it no longer bothered him anymore.

Like Ed, he had a backup plan, and it was stashed in the glove compartment of his car. But unlike Ed, he had the will to act on it.

Roy helped him pull up his jeans, sticky with blood. Ed said nothing, absorbed in the silence; Roy gave him his own jacket to keep him warm in the cold. It began to gently snow, the flakes mixing in with the freezing tears streaming from the teen's eyes.

_The bells, the soft ringing, calling me to sleep_...


	17. Curtain

Edward didn't look at him the entire car ride. He cried some, leaning against the door frame and half-listening to the radio as a form of distraction. Occasionally Roy would glance at him. It was almost cute, the way Ed would wipe at his tearful eyes, staring out into the traffic with a strangely lucid expression. The silence went relatively unabated, and Roy even smoked a cigarette. Even if he'd never smoked before. They drove arbitrarily across Central for about an hour before stopping at Charleston Street. Then, Roy got out of the car, making sure the road was clear, and stretched.

Ed remained on the passenger's side.

Roy threw his cigarette on the ground, and stamped it out underfoot. The snow had stopped, but it had left a slimy gray slush over the roads. Ice was visible under the pale yellow street lamps above. He heard a dog barking somewhere close by, and rather depressing music coming from inside the diner behind them. The diner, like every building on Charleston Street at this time in the morning, was vacant; though the 'Open' sign buzzed and flickered. "Get out of the car, Ed."

Ed didn't respond immediately, though the dark haired man could see his shoulders shaking. There was blood on his clothes, and the car's interior betrayed the scent. He looked at his own hands, and found they were stained red. "Shit." He said, cursing himself for not noticing it earlier. He walked over to the trunk of the car, and opened it with his key.

Inside the car, Ed put his hand to his forehead, and lowered himself in his seat. The lights turned themselves on as the trunk was opened, and he whimpered slightly as it shut. The noise sharpened the pain in his head.

Roy wiped his hands on some paper towels. He had left them in the back of the car months ago, and hadn't bothered retrieving them. Now he thought for a moment or two, watching blood stain the fabric. He looked at Ed, and wondered just how much he had hurt him. There was no way out of this one. If he left Edward to go free, the kid would surely tell the first person he came into contact with. He couldn't blame it on an accident. Roy supposed he could take him home with him, force him to shower, and wash his clothes for him. But there was that damn mouth of his…

He cringed, knowing he had to make a choice. "Fuck." He raked his fingers through his hair, and when that didn't seem to ease his frustration, pounded on the side of the car. "Fuck…" His hand hurt now. Without knowing what he was doing, he slowly walked over to the passenger's side door, and opened it. Ed sucked in a breath, curling into himself and turning away as Roy bent across him to get to the glove compartment. Roy could feel the boy's eyes on him, tracing every movement, his body tense. He didn't bother trying to reassure the kid. There was no point in saying he wasn't going to hurt him.

He had made that promise before.

Shakily, he opened the compartment, and felt around inside it. There were just junk papers and flyers and bills. But then the cold, hard edge of something met his fingertips, and they closed around it.

Ed's eyes widened as Roy pulled it out, and he turned his head, a scream working its way up his throat. Roy put a hand over his mouth, and pressed the gun against his head. Ed started crying. Desperation pulling at his eyes, he tried to push him off. Roy felt sick seeing him struggle so hard against the inevitable, but only tightened the grip on his mouth. "Listen to me." He whispered harshly. "_Listen to me._"

Edward managed to calm down a bit, the endless flow of tears starting to sting a little. He didn't know why he wasn't putting up a better fight. Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe it was because he hadn't kept down any food for four and a half days. Maybe it was blood loss, or the splitting migraine in his skull. Or maybe he wanted to listen, and wait, and see if the man he used to look up to – admire – _love _on some innocent level – would actually kill him. Perhaps Roy was waiting to take him somewhere darker, more secluded, where no one would ever find him.

He almost wanted to laugh. Because in all of his terror, one sentence remained in his head: _Everett__ Mildon had been dead for approximately four and a half hours…_

Why that statement? Why now? He dizzily looked about at the street signs, but Roy jerked his head back so that he could look at _him_.

"I want you to shut up." Roy said darkly, his eyes closed as though he were thinking very deeply about something. "I want you to shut up and I want you to hold still for a minute, okay?" But his voice was oddly assuring. The last few words held a note of kindness, and Ed clung to that kindness – the one bit of humanity he had glimpsed all evening.

He couldn't help but think about Roy's finger, just a tiny movement away from putting a bullet in his head. If it happened, it happened. There was nothing he could do. But waiting for it was comparable to Chinese water torture; the monotony of the fall of a single drop of water (…_some simple pressure on the trigger…) _was enough to drive him insane.

Roy took the hand over his mouth, and moved it over, thumb running gently over his lips, his cheekbone, his closing eyelids. Ed went still, his troubled breathing the only sound. He was trembling.

He saw Al's face. From when they were children. And then – _splat – _blood covering a wall, a floor, a body in dripping chains with unidentifiable eyes – _dental records – _that was Loretta – and Morgan Tate – and Everett Mildon, too. All just statistics now. He didn't want to become a statistic. Not a number. Not some faceless name, left discarded in an alley or under a bridge or in some lake. Damn it. He saw his mother, too; he hadn't thought about her in ages. Now she stayed in his brain, a simple image of her long ago, in the kitchen. There was a sunflower on the table in front of him, wilting…

"Please don't kill me…" He cracked out, voice unrecognizable even to him. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to see what was happening outside of the only defensive walls he had left. "Please…" A sob broke from him as he heard the trigger click. He expected death, but felt a lessening of pressure. Roy pulled the gun away from him. Curious, Ed looked toward him, and was surprised to see that the man had hot tears running down his face.

"Get out." Roy said to him. He stepped back a few feet, keeping the gun pointed at the ground but in a manner to indicate he was still threatening him. "Get out now."

Ed did as he was told, afraid to disobey.

"Come here."

"Please…" Ed slowly approached Roy as though the man were a tiger springing for the attack. He flinched, arms wrapping around him, Roy breathing into his hair. The gun was digging into his back now, and he stared at the flashing lights of the diner, taking shallow amounts of air into his lungs. Roy ran his hand over his body, gently. He kissed his head, then kissed his mouth; long and drawn out, sad and somehow remorseful. Eventually both of his hands – even the one holding the weapon – found their way up to the teen's head, clutching at either side. He heard himself moan very softly, wanting Edward more than his heart could handle.

Edward would never, ever be his. Even the world couldn't be owned. God held onto every tree, every city, every human being. Roy didn't know who held Edward. He was too perfect for God. But he longed for the ability to let go. Perhaps he would be able to in time, or in another plane of existence.

He forced himself to break away from the boy, and pushed him down onto the sidewalk. Ed barely managed to catch himself, and lay on his back, staring up into the face for what he felt was the last time. He numbly understood Roy reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a few dollar bills. He tossed them down to Edward, and they landed beside him.

"Go in there and call someone for help." Roy stated flatly, dark eyes locking onto his. "I never want to see you again." He threw the gun into the passenger's side seat, and then started walking to the opposite end of the vehicle.

Ed was puzzled, and felt alarm creeping into his gut. "What are you doing?" He stuttered weakly.

"I'm…going for a drive, Ed," Roy said softly, climbing into the driver's seat. He shut the door with a loud thump. "Get inside and do what I told you. I wish I could have taken you with me," He said, thinking of the other options he had run through. They involved two graves, not one. "But I couldn't." He pushed the keys into the ignition, and the engine roared to life. Bright red lights appeared in the dim darkness.

"Colonel." Ed said, shining tears on his face. "What are you doing?" He repeated.

Roy fixed him a gaze in the side mirror, and then took off in the car. He went down the street, winding down the lanes and the sparse traffic with little thought in mind. Soon, Edward was missing from view entirely.

* * *

_"I tell you, there's going to be a strong dive in temperatures over the next two hours with some patches of heavy snow and sleet...."_

The bell rang above the door. Edward kept his head bent down, going past the dozing woman at the counter. He sat down on a barstool, staring at the top of the counter in a haze. It was at least ten minutes before the woman (Eunice was her name) jerked herself away and mumbled, "Can I help you?"

He shook his head. His fingers started to numbly throb where the cold had bit them. "No, sorry. I just need...to think for a minute."

"Something happen to you, honey?" She looked his body over, and frowned at the sight of blood. To her, he appeared to be in shock. Maybe he was.

He didn't respond, merely letting his bangs drip water onto the floor. His clothes were soaking wet. "Do you have a phone?" He asked shakily.

She smiled at him, looking him up and down with disapproval. "Yeah, in the back." She jerked her head toward it, then left him there, wiping the counters with a dirty old rag.

He slid off the barstool and walked past her, past the television set that was droning on. A bright red bar at the bottom of the screen listed counties in danger of heavy snowfall.

There was a narrow hallway that had three doors inside of it. One led to the storage, one to the kitchen, and the other to a bathroom. Next to the bathroom was an old pay phone, and he dug through his pockets for spare change. There was just enough for a quick two minute call. He pushed the quarters into the slot, and dialed a number as quickly as his burning fingers would allow.

The line clicked. "Hello?"

"Hawkeye?"

There was a pause. "No, Hayate, get off the bed-" Riza said in the background. She put the phone back against her ear. "Edward, are you all right? Lieutenant Havoc's been looking everywhere for you."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry...I just..." Tears started to sting his eyes. He felt so warmed just from hearing her voice that he wondered if he was actually still alive. He had come so close to death, and been hurt so badly that he could barely stand. But a familiar tone was heaven to his ears. He wanted to spill the truth to her, then and there, but wondered if it would be wise. "Can you come get me?"

"I could. Where are you at?"

Edward hesitated, biting his lip. "I'm fine. I'm at some diner. Charleston Street."

"I think I know what you're talking about...it's down by the landing. I'll come and get you in just a few minutes, okay? Then you can explain the whole story to me."

Ed nodded even if Riza couldn't see. He was eternally grateful to her, even if she was secretly planning on lecturing him. Despite the warmth in his body, a voice that sounded quite unlike his own broke from his lips. "Please, just come get me."

There was an uneasy silence. The ceiling light flickered, the fly attached to it ruffling its pale wings. "Did something happen to you?"

"No."

"Did you get hurt?"

"No. Nothing happened. Please, just...hurry. Okay?" He spent the last twenty seconds giving quick directions, and then hung up. He leaned his back against the wall, and hit his head against it, over and over, until the headache was just as inflamed as his red palms. He sunk low into a sitting position, and buried his face in his knees, shallowly breathing and pressing out the world. But every time he closed his eyes, he would see himself, shaking and begging and screaming for help, as hands tore at his clothes.

He didn't realize it, but he was crying.

"You're mine, Edward."

He slammed his hands to his ears, squeezing the lids of his eyes shut tight.

"So sweet..."

Ed shook his head. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't real. It wasn't. "Stop..." He whispered. The ceiling light dimmed for an instant, the room's light going in and out. Everything was loud, too loud to comprehend. Cold wind rushed outside the four walls he was enclosed in.

"I'll burn you alive if you fuck up again."

Ed's eyes opened. He couldn't breathe. His lungs felt as though they had expanded well beyond capacity, and yet, still couldn't give him enough oxygen to survive. He was stretched beyond all limit. He was back in the graveyard again, the ground covered in a dusting of frost, the rough hand running over his body.

Cold, inescapable silence engulfed him. The bells were calling him again, but they wouldn't be ignored.

"Edward, are you all right?"

He lifted his head up, jolted back into reality. His eyes were wide, still trapped in the delusion that he was being held down. So when Hawkeye reached for him, he shrank back into the wall with a soft whimper, weakly fighting against the inevitable touch. Riza only gave him an inquisitive look, and helped him to his feet. He must have been crying, because she held him close and didn't let him go.

She felt warm.

"What happened?" Riza asked over his shoulder, at someone Ed couldn't see. He stiffened slightly as she stroked the back of his head.

Eunice was standing there, worry crossing her brow. "I don't know. He came in looking pretty beat up, and he just started screaming and crying."

Hawkeye nodded. She looked down over the boy's body, and sucked in a breath of air. His jeans were covered in splotches of blood, and his jacket, too. He was trembling in her arms, seemingly too weak to keep crying. He felt heavier than she remembered him being, and she supposed it was because he was leaning on her for all of his support. "Ed, what happened? Did you get in an accident?"

He didn't reply to her, but reluctantly shook his head no.

Hawkeye and Eunice shared a glance. "Did someone hurt you?" She asked, the possibility striking a certain angry chord inside of her. He started crying harder all of a sudden, and she gripped his chin and forced him to look into her eyes. "Ed, did someone hurt you?"

At first she was afraid he wasn't going to respond again, but he uttered a single word. "Yes." He breathed, collapsing. She caught him, and saw that he had fallen unconscious. Eunice ran past her to the kitchen door, and went inside, presumably to call 911. Hawkeye sat down on the floor and cradled Edward's head, brushing back his bangs. She smelled something oddly familiar, oddly sweet.

Like sex.

* * *


	18. Sunrise

He was sinking into something soft. Almost comfortable, almost like dull blue light. But that didn't even make sense. How could he possibly be sinking into color? He focused on the swimming sensation in his head, like a cold dream state, but it wasn't a dream; it was tangible. And there were voices. Very distant, but somehow very lucid, as well. Drifting in the silence of illusion, and echoing, like the call of a sea creature in the depths of dark waters.

_"Hawkeye, what's going on?" _

_"He's going to make it, I know he will." _

_"Just keep trying to breathe, all right?" _

_"What the fuck happened to him?" _

_"How am I supposed to know?" _

_"Can you hear me?" _

And suddenly color and sound and light came in an explosion. He was lying down, he knew that much. There were people all around him, one frantic mob of confusion and harsh reality. Various mechanical noises, something being held over his face. He caught the image of another, in the reflection of metal - metal from somewhere, he had no idea where - Havoc, maybe. What was Havoc doing there? Wherever _there _was? Shit.

He felt sick. And weak. His eyes roamed the room, and found only white walls, linoleum tile, glass and strange masked faces with no names. He was so tired of people without names. They coaxed him back down onto whatever he was lying on with cold fingers - _get your fucking hands off of me - _barking directions and orders every which way, the whole place filled with the stench of precision tools and bitter medical equipment. He foggily remembered bleeding, and collapsing, and his heartbeat slowing until he couldn't feel it pulsing beneath the thin material of his jacket.

"What are you doing?" Havoc was asking, looking at someone Edward couldn't see. He tried to lift his head up, but was pushed back down again. _Why? _They were holding him down, that didn't make sense, why would they do that, only Roy did that, only he would push him back down when he was trying to stand...he tried to tell them that, but his mouth wouldn't move. His jaw felt like it were made of gelatin, and his lungs failed to let him breathe. He felt like he was collapsing into himself, as a building does under pressure.

"Stand back, come on, he poisoned himself..."

Poisoned? Oh, shit. Why wouldn't they just let him die...?

"We need to pump his stomach out, get out of the room."

The words barely registered in his mind before he fainted again.

* * *

Jean wanted a cigarette. So far, he had asked all of the seven occupants of the waiting room at St. Lito's medical center, and all of them had given him angry stares. One man dared to point at a non-smoking sign that screamed its warning. "Sorry." He mumbled, the absence of nicotine in his system not faring well. He could have gone out and bought more, but the mere thought was almost impossible. Sordidly he took a great gulp of lukewarm, tasteless coffee.

He paced the room gently, walking back and forth. He remembered a time two nights ago, when he had held Edward after a brutal nightmare. He had felt the boy's heartbeat, and it had unlocked a vast chain of emotions he had never before experienced.

A kind of psychological need, maybe. He had screwed up his chances of raising a family a long time ago. And strangely, Edward had, in the space of a few short weeks, become the child he'd never had. It was strange, mainly because of the circumstances surrounding their closeness. As Edward mentioned countless times before, it couldn't last. Sometimes Havoc wondered how deep his words rang. The medic said that the boy's heart was failing; if Edward died...

"Hey." Lieutenant Hawkeye said, coming up behind him. They were by the window that stood out in the waiting area, blanketing the stiff chairs and magazine tables in the dull glow of lamp light outside. They were on the second floor, and he distracted himself by watching the slow cars weave through the hospital's dead morning parking lot. "How are you doing?"

He snorted without meaning to, and then took another drink of coffee. "I"m doing fabulous. Never better."

Normally Hawkeye would have retaliated, but she kept her mouth closed. She wasn't drinking coffee. Instead, she had bought a bottled water from the vending machine outside the hospital's elevators. It was by her purse on the coffee table, unopened. "Well. There was no harm in asking." She offered a warm smile, looking out over the streets. She detected a bright patch of sun struggling to find its way over the horizon. But morning wasn't coming fast enough.

They slipped into awkward silence. Jean knew why. They were the only two to know that Edward was in the hospital, allegedly from a combination of starvation, severe stress, and the fact that he had overdosed on medication. Both weren't sure what to make of it. Hawkeye, on one hand, found it peculiar. She knew Edward was having hard times, but not enough to kill himself. She felt a little nauseous, too, knowing she might have prevented it had she really reached out.

The forlorn looks, the introversion he displayed recently. It all added up to depression no matter what angle you looked at, but she couldn't help but question why he would actually go through with suicide. She had always known him to be stronger than that. He weathered whatever obstacle was thrown at him. Alphonse's death had been hard on all of them, but somehow she felt that wasn't all it was. In fact, Edward hadn't mentioned his brother for a long time yet. "Hopefully, they'll tell us what's going on. Then we can get back to work."

Jean frowned, but nodded his head. He drained the cup of coffee and threw it into a waste basket, his eyes cold and unforgiving. "Right. Maybe. But I'm not sure...something doesn't feel right."

Riza shot him a look from the corner of her eye, knowing exactly what he spoke of. He had noticed it, too, but hadn't said anything. The blood on Edward's clothes. No matter what Ed took, they doubted it would have injured him like that. She considered that he might have coughed up blood, but such an idea made her feel ill. Surely he wasn't that sick. "This is going to sound ridiculous." She admitted quietly, watching him. His arms were folded across his chest, his blond hair rough and masculine and slightly golden in the lamp light. "But when I found him, and I was holding him...he smelled like..."

Jean's body stiffened noticeably.

"Like...well, now that I think on it, it's a little ridiculous...but it was almost like...sex."

Havoc turned around to face her, his breath caught in his throat. That could mean only one thing. But it was almost inconceivable, and partially ironic. "What do you mean? You think someone did something to him?"

"I'm not ruling it out." She said darkly. "And if they did..." Her cinnamon eyes reflected hate. Jean saw her fists clench and unclench, very surreptitiously.

"...I'm going to kill him." He finished for her.

"Excuse me?" A kind voice said from the doorway of the waiting room. They both turned around. Havoc caught a look into Riza's eyes, and saw they were bloodshot and red. The voice from the doorway turned out to be a dark-skinned nurse with blue scrubs. She smiled. "You can see him for a few minutes if you'd like."

Havoc nodded, unfolding his arms. "Yeah, I think we'd both like that."

He walked forward, and Hawkeye blocked his way for a few moments. "You go on ahead. I'm going to call the others and tell them what's going on. Roy's going to want to know about this." And why wouldn't he? He was probably getting ready for work at this time in the morning, and in need of some prodding to get a head start on paperwork. He was always inquiring about Edward. Surely he would want to know if the boy tried anything as desperate as a suicide attempt...

Jean cringed. Roy Mustang was a dirty bastard, and if his hunch was right, then he was going to be _very _interested indeed. For now, though, Havoc's only priority was Edward. "Yeah." He said softly. "You do that."

* * *

"We're putting him on a feeding tube later because he refuses to eat." The nurse said to him as they watched the teen through a clear window. Havoc wanted to put his fingers to the glass, feeling unbelievably close to him, even at such a distance. Edward was awake, but staring awkwardly at the opposite wall, his eyes glazed over and filled with some kind of dark light. He was hooked up to machines, an IV in his arm.

Havoc smiled, knowing that Edward hated needles more than anything in the world. "Is he going to be okay?"

"Can't say for now. So far his heart rate is only about forty-nine beats per minute - that's extraordinarily low, especially for a male. As for his concussion, he's a little dazed but there's no lasting brain damage. All we can do is hope he can recuperate." She opened the door to let him into the room, and he hesitated.

Softly, to her ears only so that Edward couldn't hear, he said,"Did they examine his body?"

"No. He wouldn't let any of the doctors touch him." The nurse said, looking at Edward with a motherly, pitying expression. "Why?"

Jean counted to ten, closing his eyes. He counted again, just to make sure everything was real. "This is going to sound weird. But can you run a rape test on him?" Edward would never admit to it himself. What Jean needed was hard evidence. And soon.

She responded with silence, at first. "You think someone might have...?"

"Not only that, but I think I've got a pretty good idea of who."

She shifted her position with some disease, and then offered him a soft smile. "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Jean entered the room quietly, and shut the door behind him. The noise of the door was almost loud in the silence. Only the heart monitor continued to sound off, Edward sitting on the bed looking very morose. He stiffened as Havoc came closer, slight confusion in his gold eyes that Jean was well aware of. Slowly, he eased himself into a chair beside the bed, and looked the boy over.

Edward was staring at him fearfully, like he were afraid of being attacked or yelled at. He was wearing the same clothes as before, still blood stained, still torn in some places. And various cuts and bruises marked the boy's body, from before or from the present. Havoc wasn't entirely sure. He wanted to reach out and touch him, just lay a hand on his arm, or stroke his bangs out of his face. But something told him that wasn't the greatest of ideas.

Havoc wondered if attention was what the kid was aiming for. He wanted to give it to him, but for some reason his mouth remained a thin line. "Why did you do it?" He asked in cracked, foreign tones. The question had been bothering him ever since Edward left him hours before. Why had he taken so many pills? Why had he gotten so angry? Why had he thrown a punch like that? Christ, for a shrimp, the teenager could pack a wallop with his fists. "You can tell me, you know."

Edward said nothing, looking away, his hair swiveling and framing his face with dark shadows. He remained silent, steadily breathing, his stomach in pain from the mechanism they had used on him. He just wanted to go to sleep, possibly forever, but no one was allowing it. Why the fuck not? Why was everyone out to get him? Unintentionally, he felt a cool tear slide down his cheek.

"Ed."

Still not a word.

Jean sighed. Better yet, he wondered where Edward had run off to. And what had happened to him. And if Hawkeye's suspicions held any water. If they did, and if someone really had touched the kid, he didn't know what he'd do. This wasn't just simple military perversion anymore; this was full blown assault. And assault of a minor, no less. Edward was still just a child in the viewpoint of the law. "I'm going to sit here all day until you tell me the truth."

Edward shook, holding onto himself and biting his lip to keep the cries from spilling out. "There's nothing to say." He stuttered.

"Where did you go?"

Edward's lower lip trembled for a moment. "To visit my brother." Truth enough, truth enough. See, that wasn't so hard, was it, you little shit? You just keep those secrets locked away, darling, and leave yourself to me. Because you're mine, and you'll always be mine. _You never thanked me for using me. _"It was kind of cold. I must have just...freaked out a little. That's all." His mouth resealed itself. Away from speaking, away from feeling, away from an intrusive tongue that begged for him.

"That's not the whole truth and you know it. So I want to know. How did you get all beat up like that?"

"I was stumbling around a lot. It was pretty dark. I don't remember half of it." His voice was as monotonous as possible. So without emotion that Jean doubted him quite a bit. Something was wrong with him. He didn't know what, but something was definitely wrong with Edward. He was more distant than he had ever been. Colder, somehow, more fragile. Delicate. "I fell down on some rough ice."

"Always making excuses." Jean muttered, thinking about weeks prior.

_"Edward, how did you get that bruise on your arm?"_

_"Nothing, Lieutenant Hawkeye. Just tripped and landed on a baseball. Ha! Can you believe it?"_

_"Did you run into another door, Ed?" _

_"Haha, yes. Clumsy me."_

"It's not an excuse." Ed interjected, showing more feeling than in all the conversation. He actually looked the man in the eyes, and shuddered a little. The temperature of the room was freezing cold, but he didn't draw the blankets closer because of how miserable he assumed he would look. "It's a goddamn fact. I fell on some ice. And my head hit the gravestone."

"They're going to look at you later. To see if you've been hurt in any way." Jean said, locking onto his gaze. "They're going to find out the truth, Ed. No matter what. And if you refuse, then it's damn well confirmed anyway. Do you understand that? It's over."

Edward didn't respond. He drew closer to himself.

"Hey, Ed. Can you hear me?" Havoc asked, leaning forward. Edward wasn't looking at him and he intended to change that. "Come on, you can talk to me, you know that." He put a hand on the boy's wrist, carefully wrapping his fingers in warmth. Edward's skin was spread with gooseflesh, and he jerked his hand away.

"What happened?"

"Nothing." Ed said in a broken tone. He was shaking. A soft sob escaped his lips, and he cringed, eyes closing shut. "Nothing happened," His fists clenched around the sheets.

"I don't believe that. I don't believe that for a minute, Edward. Come on. Tell me what happened. Was it Mustang?"

Ed started crying, the tears running down and catching on his dirtied clothes. "I don't know."

"Edward, this has gone on long enough. Was it him?"

"N-no...just leave me alone, please...I'm really tired..." He made an attempt to turn his head into the pillow, golden hair spilling around his shoulders. Havoc caught him by the forearm, darkness in his stare. Edward shrank back into the bed, knowing the man wanted answers. The stare he received was familiar, somehow.

Havoc leaned over him, anger directed at Mustang, not the teenager, but still presenting itself in his frustration. "What did he do to you?" He demanded in a low tone, grip tightening. Edward cringed.

"You're hurting me..."

"I have to know. If that bastard laid a fucking hand on you, I want to know." Jean didn't relinquish in the slightest bit. "Tell me what happened." Edward was frozen in denial and fear, completely trapped in the memory of whatever had held him down. Jean knew he was frightened, but that made it all the more necessary to keep a grip on him, no matter how hard he might have been pushing.

"Please..."

"Tell me!"

"He told me he'd kill me!" Edward managed to crack out, body shaking intensely. He felt sick to his stomach. Whether it was the intention or not, Havoc's hold reminded him of Mustang. Two worlds collided into one, the living universe seeming much less clear. What was illusion was reality, what was reality was illusion. "He put a gun to my head and he almost pulled the..."

Jean's glare intensified. Roy had almost killed him. Almost stopped his heart completely. Almost took the kid away from him. "What else?" He took hold of him by the shoulders, shaking him. "Tell me what else."

There was another sob, and then Edward turned his head again. He choked on his tears for a moment or two, opening and closing his mouth, trying to force out the words. "I can't." He said, trembling. "I can't..."

"You have to."

"He p-pushed me down...and he..." Edward stuttered, eyes seemingly far away. His hand snapped to Havoc's wrist, and he tried pulling him off, but Jean wouldn't let go. "And he...he made me..." He shut down. The walls of the hospital seemed to crash around him. He closed his eyes again, silently pleading.

Jean released him quickly. "He touched you?"

"He raped me!"

Guilt and shame rose over Jean's body. His skin was hot and fevered, and he looked at his hands, regretting his impulsive decision to grab at him so fiercely. Edward looked up at him with tearful eyes, questioning in them alongside fear. Jean shook his head, and leaned toward him to pull him into an embrace. Ed flinched, but then realized he was simply being held very tightly.

He cried into the man's shoulder, cologne and soap washing over him. He reached around to put his arms around the man's neck, crying and feeling ashamed and confused for doing so. "I didn't let him, I'm sorry, I never meant for..." Ed tried to defend himself, not wanting Havoc to think he was weak or pathetic or a whore. Just a few titles so unceremoniously bestowed on him, trapping him, confusing him. If only he could have let go of them. If only he hadn't been a coward. If only he hadn't taken a detour, and had actually gone home, and taken enough sleeping aids to invoke dreamless eternal sleep.

_Please, just let me sleep. I don't want to fight anymore.  
_

"Shh, it's not your fault," Jean said, stroking the back of his head. His body felt so warm and small in his arms. "I'm the one that should be sorry, Ed. It's not your fault, it's mine, okay?" He just wanted him to stop crying. He couldn't _stand _seeing him cry. God. "I'm going to find a way to fix this."

"What if he comes back for me?" Edward asked. Streaks of tears made their way down his face, tracking through the dirt and grime. "What if he tries to do it again?" Jean brushed the bangs out of his vision.

"I'm not going to let him."

There was a rapping on the door frame behind them. Havoc turned swiftly around, and saw Lieutenant Hawkeye standing there. She smiled weakly at them, and then noticed how flushed Edward's face was with tears. She also noted how Havoc was holding onto him, and cleared her throat. "What's going on?" She demanded.

"Nothing." Jean said, letting him go immediately. Edward pulled his knees up to his chest and started crying into his folded arms, still trembling in shame and anxiety. Jean realized at once how the scene might look to an outsider, but was cut off by Hawkeye.

"What did you do?" She asked harshly, stepping forward to the teen's bedside. She pulled him close to her, trying to get him to look at her. When he refused, she glared back at Havoc. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing." He defended quickly, trying to save Edward from an explanation. "It's not what it looks like, okay? I need to talk to you for a minute, in private. It's extremely important."

Riza detected a grave seriousness in his tone, and stole a glance at Edward. Jean led her out of the room, closing the door behind them.

"What's going on?" Riza repeated, something fiery in her stare.

Jean looked up and down the corridor, making sure they were out of earshot. "Do you want to sit down?" He asked softly. The woman shook her head.

"Why?" She asked, some concern making itself apparent on her facial features. They were normally hard and passive, without emotion. Now they were softer, perhaps because of the lack of sleep. She pulled her cell phone from her purse, and started dialing a number. "I'll call Roy, whatever it is, he might want to hear it...I couldn't reach him earlier for some reason..."

Jean laid a gentle hand on hers, and closed the cell phone in her palm. He shook his head.

Something was seriously wrong here. "What is it?" She asked breathlessly. Jean didn't answer. "Damn it, Lieutenant Havoc, what is going on?"

"Edward says he's been raped." Jean didn't hold back, simply letting the words fall from his lips. He put his hands in his pockets, patiently waiting as her expression turned from shock to realization to horror.

"By who?" She swallowed, not letting the sickness in her stomach reach her brain. Edward. Raped? She couldn't see it, and when she tried, she found herself growing nauseous at the image. She saw faceless men, in the dark, catching him off guard. He was rather pretty for a boy, she had always secretly thought. But that was why Roy had specifically ordered his unit to keep a close eye on him. Now they'd failed at protecting him. She could hear him screaming inside of her head, and found maternal anger push its way to the surface of the nightmare.

Jean laid a hand on her shoulder. "He says it was Roy. I think we need to call the police, now."

Silence. Complete and total silence. Riza looked at the hand on her shoulder, as though confused about its existence. "Roy?" She repeated numbly, the hospital walls closing in on her. It was a lie. It was a stupid, cruel lie, and she wanted to shove her fingers in her ear like some immature preschooler. She took a deep breath and sunk into a chair beside the wall, her heart beating too fast for her to think.

"Careful," Jean said to her, holding on to her for support. He was concerned. She didn't appear to be taking it well. Fuck that. What did he expect? The man they trusted had really thrown them a fucking curveball. The fact that he had even touched the kid in the first place was hard to digest. "Come on, take it easy..."

Riza stared at the opposite wall, not at him or at anything else. Her eyes were filled with molten tears, and her lower lip was working quietly. "What did he say?" She whispered, conjuring another set of images in her head. Roy, over the years, Ed, over the years. Roy and Edward were like...or she had always thought them to be like...surely, this was just a ploy, this was just a lie! All of it. She couldn't see it. No matter how many scenarios, she couldn't see Roy ever laying a finger on him.

She slapped Havoc's hand from her shoulder. "Roy?" Roy wouldn't ever touch him. Roy wouldn't. He was practically a father to the kid. Had raised him, protected him, kept him alive even when the military wanted him dead. But what if it was true? What if it was all a facade? A clever facade. Roy could play roles well; she knew that from experience. He could charm whomever he wanted. He also wasn't above lust. She knew that from experience, too. Above all, there were the times that he took Edward into meetings alone, and how afterward, Edward would show increasing signs of inferiority and fear. Fear.

The marks that appeared all over his body...

No. She started shaking her head, drowning out the voices inside of it. If she listened to them, she would have to admit that the Colonel she looked up to had hurt the person she thought of as a son.

"You don't believe him?" Jean asked, surprised laced into his tone.

"If there's one the thing the Colonel wouldn't do, it's rape children." She said decisively, still looking anywhere but at his face.

"It's Ed, Lieutenant, we all know how Mustang was with him...the way he talked about him, do you remember?"

Of course Riza remembered. She remembered perfectly. She was well acquainted with Roy's affairs with a bottle of whiskey; well accustomed to the speeches he worked himself into. Before she would assist him, usually by holding his head over a toilet bowl and keeping him from suffering a hangover, he would blast off into the most alarming conversation. How he thought Edward was beautiful. She had never paid attention to it, because she had to admit that she indulged in drink with him when the mood suited her. She, too, knew the horrors of war, and sleeping was hard to do without a dull brain and a warm body to lean on.

Riza reached forward, pulling Havoc's cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket without a word. He looked down at his pocket with arched eyebrows, wondering why he hadn't noticed the pack before. He didn't stop her. She took out a cigarette and lit up, putting it in her mouth. "I know he pushed him around. I know he did. And I know he hit him, years ago, but I never..."

"He beat him." Jean said, trying vainly to get the point across. He put his hands against the wall and leaned over her. "I saw it myself. My God, you should see some of the crap he's done to him. And he told him it was his fault."

Riza laughed ironically, taking a slow drag on the cigarette and flicking the lighter closed. She was so stressed she could barely stand it. She stared at the smoke as it clouded the hospital's air, and said dryly, "Maybe he's lying. Maybe this is just a hopeless ply for attention. Fullmetal has always had a tendency to act brash and bold." She closed her eyes, letting the smoke dissipate around her. She expected the argument to end with that. Her word usually ended any dispute.

Jean was becoming concerned for her. It was like there was an epidemic of craziness floating around Central. She was an emotional wreck. Her mascara was running down her face and she looked like she hadn't bathed in weeks. And her eyes were red, with tears and sleep deprivation. "He's just a kid, Riza."

"He's also in the hospital for a suicide attempt." Hawkeye said from the corner of her mouth, the cigarette twitching in her hand. She coughed. She had never smoked one of these before. "Self destructive behavior often begets suicide attempts. Don't you understand that..."

"Damn it, get a grip on yourself!" Jean said suddenly, unable to keep it in any longer. The truth was out, and she didn't believe it?

"Me?" Hawkeye demanded, face alighting with anger. "Why the _fuck _do I need to get a grip? You just want to accept this?"

"Look, we're both shocked, okay? No, fuck that. We're horrified by this."

"Horrified? _Horrified _is the best word you can come up with? We're talking about the Colonel and Ed! The fact that you're believing it isn't just sick, it's ludicrous!"

"The fact that you're not believing it is bullshit!"

"Watch your goddamn mouth..." Hawkeye said, taking another drag, looking away from him. Her eyes were stinging.

"But we made a pact, remember?"

Hawkeye faced him sharply, tears freely spilling down her cheeks. "The pact means nothing, not if Roy's gone..."

"No!" Havoc shouted, getting close to her face. She shook her head, the cigarette limply hanging from her hand. He knocked it out, and it fell to the linoleum tile. Riza watched it fall. "We made a promise, do you remember? If anyone touched him, if anyone hurt him, then we'd protect him, remember? We'd listen to him, we'd help him!"

Hawkeye's face twisted with inner torment and confusion. "But Roy started the goddamn pact!"

"Well, Roy's not here anymore. Roy's gone. He ran off after he hurt Ed. After he hurt Edward, damn it!"

"Shut up..."

"Damn it, Hawkeye, stop daydreaming. It's over. Roy's not the same guy anymore! We just need to accept it." Havoc, too, had the urge to burst into a crying fit; but he didn't, because he was a man, and if he didn't keep from falling apart, then who would? There was undeniable truth in his words. Roy wasn't the same person. Something twisted had grown inside him. Somehow, he wasn't even human, if that made any sense. Drugs or poison or war or...fuck, _something _turned him into a monster.

"I don't care! I don't care who he is! He's still the Colonel and he wouldn't hurt Edward, I know he wouldn't..."

"But he did."

"But I love him!" Hawkeye yelled. The words seemed to echo for a long while in the space of silence. She could only hear herself crying, into the wall, and see Havoc's face red with anger and the denial of tears. His chest was heaving. "Damn it, Jean, I love him." A small sob escaped her and she turned her head. White dresses were disappearing fast. She had always imagined it, like a child's fairy tale. _A black tux..._

"I know you do." Jean said, voice softening like butter. "I know you do." He stepped forward, and very hesitantly put arms around her. He could feel her shaking. She reminded him of Edward, after those long nights of flashbacks. "Shh...I know you did..." He whispered.

_White flowers and a white cake..._

"I hate that bastard," Hawkeye said quietly. "I hate him for even thinking about touching that child, but I still love him." A hot drop of water fell down her face and onto the floor. Maybe she'd known all along.

_And coal eyes, and raven hair, and warm arms wrapped around her waist. Goodbye to bullets, goodbye to blood red suns, goodbye to years of infertility and tragedy. _

Jean couldn't stand seeing her cry, either. No matter the number of evils in the world, seeing people cry was the worst of them. It just grated his nerves. It reminded him of himself, years and years ago, when he would see his sister go through agonizing surgeries; and when he would offer up pieces of himself to help her get well again. It was what he had been raised for. He and his little sister were 'compatible.' He offered her blood, he offered her marrow when the time came to give it up. And when he saw people cry, he wanted to give more. So he did.

He kissed Hawkeye on the mouth.

She stiffened slightly, but didn't make a sound. Both pairs of eyes closed. Havoc took hold of her chin, and tasted her. She was sweet, and salty, and dark, like no woman he had ever kissed before. And wet. It was very wet, but not unbearably so. He kind of liked it. Kind of, but not enough to make him fall for her. Not enough to feel anything, really.

He had no idea what the hell he was doing. Finally he pulled away, and looked into her eyes. They were the color of blood, and the glossy reflection of tears doubled the metaphor. "What did you do that for?" She breathed.

He took a shaking gasp. "I don't know."


	19. Ghosts

**Deleted the horrifically long author's note.  
**

* * *

Jean put all of his faith in his muscles to stop aching, but so far the gods refused to let the pain subside. He was tired. He was fucking tired, and no amount of caffeine or nicotine could help that. Instead of voicing that his head hurt and that his eyelids were drooping so considerably he figured he must look like a mentally incapacitated dumbo, he simply sat in the creaking hospital chair beside Edward's bed, stroking the teen's hair back. Edward only blinked, not saying much, dried up tears the only evidence that uncoiling emotion was eating him from the inside out.

Hawkeye had remained in the hallway, head in her lap. She cried for a bit longer after he had left her - after he had kissed her, he remembered with a cringe. He wondered how he would explain that one at the workplace. But thinking about the workplace made him think about Feury and Falman and Breda, and about how they had absolutely no clue what was going on. And then, still, he would always picture Mustang in the background of the office, grumbling about his own procrastination. Now that image was spliced in half, because he and Riza now knew a much darker side to Mustang that they'd rather leave buried under mounds of paperwork.

He presently looked back out into the hallway, and frowned when he couldn't see Riza through the glass of the room. The woman had disappeared, and to where, he couldn't guess.

"I think..." Edward spoke up hesitantly, "He really left...for good this time..."

Jean had thought about that for the past half hour or so. Roy had abandoned Edward on the street to bleed and thrown some money at him. Why? _I could have taken you with me. _Taken him where? Out of state? Out of the country? Or to a place mortals couldn't appreciate? Edward said that Roy had pulled a gun on him - that drove Jean to madness no matter how many times he thought about it, and he had to look down at the boy's face to remind himself that he was still breathing - so it was possible Roy had been thinking of killing him, then himself.

But he had left him alone. That didn't rule out the possibility that Roy might commit suicide himself. Which made it all the more difficult to sit still and do nothing, waiting for a dawn that would never come. The police were on their way. But Havoc knew from experience never to trust a doughnut boy. They usually took their time, and by the time time was up, Roy would be gone. Either dead or somewhere in the Briggs Mountain range.

Fuck.

Edward looked up at him with some worry, and Havoc realized he had just cursed out loud. "You okay?" Ed asked softly.

Jean took a long glance at him, up and down, over his bruised and battered body. Just the thought of Mustang on top of him, restraining him, touching him - shit - _inside _of him made him want to go somewhere and curl up in the fetal position. Maybe that response would be reminiscent of melodramatic, but if he had to choose between actually facing Mustang and the former option, he opted to bring on the thumb sucking and curling.

Straight jackets craved all of them. "No, I'm not okay." Jean snapped a little too forcefully. He saw Edward flinch a little, and then his expression softened. "You know how hard this is going to be, don't you?"

"I know." Ed replied, though the honest truth was that he didn't. He kept telling himself that he was safe, under the cool sheets of the hospital, far away from whatever dark alley Roy resided in. Maybe he was shooting up. Maybe he was dead. Or maybe he regretted letting him walk away. Maybe he was planning on taking him back. "I just want to...lay here for a while and think..."

Jean smiled weakly at him. "What are you thinking about?" He put a lock of blond hair behind the boy's ear, and then sat back a little.

"Lots of things."

"Like?"

Edward's eyes drifted downwards, away from Havoc's face. His breathing was the loudest sound in the room. "The things he's said to me."

"You can tell me." Havoc whispered. "You can...you can tell me everything he's said. I mean it." His fingers slowly moved toward the teen's hand, and he gripped it. It was very cold, and gently trembling. _If I could take away all of your pain, I would. But it's not that simple. _

"Just that..." Edward began before running into an invisible wall. There was something in his throat that prevented him from going beyond that. He felt poisoned and dirty, like no one would understand, like no one would _want _to understand, if he admitted to it. Besides the dried blood on his clothing that he intended to change out of as soon as possible, there was something disgusting swimming in his own head. Years of hiding in the dark and obeying unspoken commands.

It had started out innocent. Roy would just wait until everyone had gone home, but made sure he would stay behind. Then he would close the door, and go over to him, and tell him to sit down. He would hold him at first. Gently. And that would lead to soft words of assurance, little lies and promises not to tell a soul. Then the words would turn to silence, and Ed would press himself into the back of the sofa or chair or wall - whatever it was - and close his eyes, and pretend he was somewhere else.

It was just warmth. It was just being held for a little while. Embarrassing at worst. Emotionally fulfilling at best.

That was four years ago.

"I blocked it out for a while." Edward admitted cautiously, letting small fragments of conversation fall from his lips. "I tried to pretend...that it never went very far...and it didn't..." He shook himself, trying to escape the world inside of his skull that always turned, even when he was sleeping. In that instant he had seen a camp tent, with bloody mangled corpses. Roy had alcohol on his breath, had pushed him down. He had screamed. Roy had put something over his mouth, and told him he was sorry, and that he should just forget it ever happened.

The vision stopped.

"A few weeks ago, he came to me in the middle of the night. He always used to, but he'd never do anything to me. Because Al might have been there or something, I don't know. He was usually drunk. I felt bad for him so we'd play cards or I'd listen to him ramble when he was drunk, but he'd never...he'd never..." Ed realized how silent the room had become, and how cool tears were slowly sliding down his face. "Anyway, that night a couple weeks ago, he came in and he wasn't the same somehow. I don't know if it was because Hughes died or not, but..." He swallowed.

Havoc squeezed his hand.

"He got so mad at me. When I tried pushing him off. He told me he was sorry, but I knew he wasn't. Somehow, I knew he wasn't really sorry at all. The day after that..." Edward trailed off, trembling. They all viewed Roy as the Flame. The indomitable spirit. The future president of the country. Edward knew him differently, and apparently had known him differently, for many years. He had locked himself up. "H-he came to my apartment and he raped me."

Jean nodded. "You're going to tell all of the investigators this, right?"

"I can't."

Jean thought of the handgun he kept in his car. He frowned, and then got up with a sigh, releasing Edward's hand. He paced around the room for a while, the truth sinking in. Despicable bastard. "Can I show you something?" He said awkwardly, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a picture, and Edward sat up straighter to see it.

A girl with short brown hair, light blue eyes, dimples and a thin waist was sitting in a wheel chair. She was reading some book - a vampire novel maybe - Havoc had no idea - and holding up two fingers in the shape of a peace sign. Beside her was a taller woman with cocoa dark skin, almond eyes, and full lips. Her body was gravid; she appeared to be in the final term of a pregnancy. She wasn't smiling. Havoc traced the delicate edge of the photograph, letting the corners of his mouth turn up weakly. Karma never smiled.

"I have to go." He said, pocketing the photograph. "There's something I need to do."

"What is it?"

"I'm going to grab us some McDonald's, kid." Havoc offered a fake smile. Edward saw through it immediately, but didn't question it. "It's what, six in the morning? I promise, I'll be back." It was a lie.

On the way out the door, Hawkeye brushed past him, shooting him an inquisitive glance. Two detectives were following her, along with a nurse with a file. "It's all going to hell now." Riza mouthed at him, and then turned away.

"I'll be back." He promised to her receding form. Or would he?

Hawkeye shut the door, locking herself and the investigators in the small room. Havoc didn't look back.

* * *

Soft falling snow landed gently on the windshield. The wipers were turned off, resting as stiffly as the motor of the car. The world around was a mixture of white on black, banks of it collecting on the cold windows, depleting the small amount of light that filtered through. Roy was laying out in the back seat, staring up at the ceiling, the radio turned low. In his numb hand was a bottle of - he'd forgotten. And it was beginning to taste rather tasteless.

Dried out tears stained his face, and he swallowed, thinking about everything and nothing. The handgun, such an enemy just a few hours before, was beginning to seem rather friendly. That was the reason in itself really. He would have killed Edward; was so close to doing it. And the only thing that stopped him, the only thing that prevented him from taking away the boy's life, induced a guilt that settled around him like dust. He had wondered where he would leave the body.

That was it. That was all. That's what was making him drink until it hurt. And the handgun had laid on the passenger's side seat ever since, glinting in the dull light of night, twinkling like the eyes of a friend.

He wasn't sure what he wanted anymore, not really. He _needed_ Edward. He needed to lean on him, hold him, tell him to make it all stop like he'd done so many times in the past. Before he had become too unstable; when those irresponsible moments of depending on a child had turned into taking love from him. Just like that. No mental thought processes involved, just _taking_. And leaving. And forgetting, until the next time. Until the next time...

He took another drink of the strange liquid, its burning heat stinging his throat. He threw it down on the floor of the car, and then sat up. He stared at his hands, sitting just before his lap, and shook his head. There wouldn't be a next time. He couldn't hurt him again, even though some part of him wanted to. Some part of him told him to keep on living, that it wasn't worth dying over. But those two thoughts mixed together made him even more sick with self loathing. He couldn't risk living, because Edward would always be at his mercy.

He'd give into temptation, over and over again, until there was nothing left. Sparing him? Sparing him after a split second's thought? What if that split second didn't occur if he tried it again? Then there would be no going back. He couldn't bring the dead to life.

He reached shakily around to the front seat, toward the gun. His fingers closed around it, and he quickly put it to his head. No split seconds this time. But just as he did, and just as he was about to pull the trigger, and end everything, his pocket started vibrating. It was his cell phone.

He took in a breath, and then pulled the phone out of his pocket. In bright blue letters the screen read: Charlie. He stiffened a bit, and put it to his ear.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Charlie asked dangerously, his voice more venomous than Roy had ever heard before. He shook himself back into the conversation at hand. "What? Going to kill yourself, Mustang?" He sneered. "How pathetic. Throwing your life out the window, all because of some brat."

Roy looked at the gun in his hand and then guiltily away, as though Charlie were watching him. Maybe he was. "I just can't take it anymore." He said quietly. He looked out on the roadway some feet off, and watched the cars go by, red taillights glowing in the darkness. "Why do you still talk to me? Who are you?"

"I'm an angel, remember? There doesn't have to be any explanation for it."

Roy laughed a small bit in his throat, almost ironically. "Don't be an idiot. We both know angels don't exist. Come on. Who are you? How did you get this number?" Some anger flared up inside of him, as a flash of Edward's face came to mind. He saw him crying, and hated himself for it. Those beautiful eyes weren't meant to shed tears. "What the fuck have you done to me? Ever since I started listening to you, all I've done is hurt that kid."

"I see." Charlie said softly, and then paused for a moment. "You're confused, you're tense. I can't blame you. Not after what you did to sweet little Edward, in the graveyard. I'm almost ashamed of you."

Roy's heart started beating particularly fast. "How do you know about..."

"Give me some heavenly credit, Mustang. I'm an angel, I see everything. And what you did..." He tsked in a mocking fashion. "Well, that just wasn't very nice at all."

"What do you want?" Roy asked. Fear prickled up and down his spine. There was something sinister about the voice on the other end of the phone line. Something dark he had never heard before. He jumped as Charlie spoke again, this time with much force and anger.

"You listen to me, you stupid bastard!" Charlie snapped, his voice having risen to double volume. "The police are after you. Don't you understand that? You reckless, selfish, ungrateful fool! Do you have any idea what you've done? You've ruined everything!"

"I didn't mean to hurt him..." Roy tried defending himself. He was somewhat confused. Never before had Charlie shown such hatred toward him. Never before had Charlie disagreed so much about an error in morality. Was he mad about what he'd done to the kid? No. That wasn't it at all. He numbly sunk low into his seat, feeling alcohol buzz in his ears. He was losing himself in an ocean of vodka and exhaustion. He didn't want Charlie to yell at him. Tears grew in the corners of his eyes without his awareness of it; Charlie was the only friend he had.

"Shut up. Just shut your goddamn mouth." Charlie said more quietly. He was sympathetic now in tone, though there was decisive bitterness in it. "I need to think."

Roy obeyed, not saying a word. He closed his eyes, drinking in the silence of the world. He could almost hear the soft sounds of snowflakes falling on the roof of the car. His body started to go numb with cold, his droopy eyelids growing heavier, his head almost completely clear of thought.

* * *

Martin Creme got out of the vehicle, coat billowing in the cold wind. Sleet and snow whipped at his face, and he squinted his eyes. He had gotten a call from Riza Hawkeye, and it had sent the police department - including his own unit - into action. All he knew was that the Lieutenant Colonel was in trouble, and in the hospital, because of what Roy Mustang had allegedly done to him. Gossip spread like wildfire in the military. Already, there were cops headed towards Charleston Street to tag down Mustang's car.

As for him, he wanted to talk to Edward himself. He didn't trust detectives, and Edward didn't trust them either.

* * *

"I apologize," Charlie began awkwardly, with forced kindness, "For my outburst earlier. Normally, I'm not so temperamental. But you disappointed me, Mustang, with your rash actions. Do you see the error of your ways? They're going to be looking for you everywhere. And the boy...the boy is going to tell them _everything_."

"I know. What should I do?" Roy pleaded.

"Listen carefully. Get out of the city. Don't let anyone see your face. I don't care if you have to hole yourself up in Aerugo. You're not to be found. Is that clear? Wait for my calls, they'll be coming frequently. And don't you dare try contacting anyone. Not even the boy."

Roy nodded. "Right. I'll do it. As soon as -" A loud sound pervaded the air. Roy ducked his head automatically, knowing with sheer instinct it was a gunshot. The back window of his car shattered, broken glass flying up against the headrest. Thankfully, the fact that he had ducked spared him beyond a few cuts to the back of his head. He turned around frantically, looking for the source of the shot. There was a car behind him, but the lights were so bright it was impossible to make out the details of the person who had fired the gun. "The fuck was that?"

"You've got a gun, use it." Charlie said monotonously, and then hung up.

Roy's hand darted for the gun on the passenger side seat, and then he got out of the car, slamming the door. He braced his weapon, ready to scream at whoever was making an attempt on his life. Another shot was fired at him, and he quickly rolled around so that his car was protecting him. He leaned against the hood, peering over the side mirror. It was so dark and snowy that no one on the highway noticed the exchange of gunfire, which he was partially thankful for. He stiffened as he heard feet crunch on gravel.

"Where the fuck are you?" He heard a familiar voice call out to him. He realized with wide eyes that it was Jean Havoc. Havoc. What the fuck was Havoc doing out here at this time in the morning? Roy held his gun higher, and then got up the courage to get in the man's vision. He fired a shot at Jean's own windshield, shattering the glass. Havoc ducked and covered himself, so Roy darted into the woods beside his car. He trekked at a breakneck pace through the woods. The river was just down there, and despite it's being frozen over, he estimated it would make a good place to hide about.

Hell. Havoc must have found out. And if the kid told anyone else, then Roy was sure that Havoc wasn't the only one out for his blood. More gunshots resounded off of the snow covered trees in the twilight, dead earth and white creaking beneath his feet. He kept on running, not once looking back, until icy air tore at his lungs. He cried out as a bullet scraped past his shoulder, and ducked behind a tree for shelter.

His shoulder started bleeding through the fabric of his coat.

"Come on? You want to explain?" Jean was saying, his voice echoing around in the blackness. He had tears on his face but didn't let their existence become apparent in his voice. There was only fiery rage inside of it. "You want to explain how you could have done that to Edward, you sick son of a bitch?" He walked forward angrily, kicking a large stick out of the way in the process. He saw Mustang's shadow behind a tree, and fired at it. He cursed as he missed.

"He deserved it." Roy growled dangerously, though on the inside he wasn't as sure. He readied his own gun, taking shallow breaths. He held onto his shoulder with the opposite hand, compressing the wound.

"Bullshit!"

Roy stepped along the line of trees, knowing Jean couldn't see him as well as if it were daylight. He thanked the blanket of black that coated the sky, and his own superior skills of stealth.

"He never did anything to you. He never did anything to anyone, not if he could help it. Why the hell would you hurt him? Do you understand he's in the hospital right now? He almost died because of all the crap you've done to him!" Jean's heart skipped a beat as he spotted Mustang, and his eyes narrowed. He held up his gun, knowing that this time, he wouldn't miss. Manslaughter? Murder? Fuck. It didn't matter anymore.

He could just say it was self-defense.

His fingers tightened around the trigger, and a bullet shot through the air.

Roy's hands shook around the gun, his breathing ragged. Havoc stared at him with an expression of shock, fingers going to the thick and bright red wound opening on his chest. Roy dropped the gun in the snow, realizing that he'd shot Havoc. He'd shot Havoc. Jean stumbled forward, and Roy took a step back. Some part of him wanted to catch Jean, and another part wanted to run. His brain _screamed _for him to run. "I'm s-sorry..."

"Save it..." Havoc whispered, falling down onto the snowbank. He leaned against a tree, trying to get breaths of air into his lungs. He cringed, face twising in pain, "Fuck..."

"How did you find me?"

Jean shook his head, spitting on the ground. His saliva was mingled with blood. If he had blood in his mouth, that wasn't a good sign. He fought to keep awake, darkness pricking his vision. He looked at his hands, and grew nauseous when he saw the syrupy red texture. "I...w-we always used to come here, remember? You, me, Breda, Hawkeye..." He winced a little more, the bullet feeling like a thick slab of ice in his chest. "And Karma. We'd smoke pot on this road...no cars, no cops...just the woods..."

Roy's eyes darkened with memory and regret.

"A-and...the river..." Jean let out a cry of pain. He wasn't dying. He couldn't be dying. Edward needed him to protect him. He'd promised him he would protect him...."It was where you lost your..." He snickered. "Fuck it. I know you. Or used to know you...used to before..." His fists clenched. His body was going wet and numb in the snow that blanketed it. "Why the fuck would you...!"

Roy whipped out his gun, and pointed it at the blond man. He was trembling and his teeth were clenched. "Shut up. Just shut up!"

"No!"

Roy's fingers squeezed the trigger, and the bullet pierced the top of the tree Havoc rested under. Snow fell down onto the man's head in a slight dusting, and his face was coated with sticky wet tears. "I don't want to kill you." Roy muttered, and he meant it. "I just want it all to stop..."

_Listen carefully. Get out of the city. Don't let anyone see your face. _

A tear tracked down his cheek, and his grip on the gun tightened. "If I go with you...will I...will I get to see Edward? Will I get to tell him...that I'm..." He trailed off, his voice weakened by sobs.

Jean sent him a sympathetic glance, but his eyes were harder than diamonds. "Like hell I'll ever let you touch him again." He reached down and quickly pulled up his gun, and then aimed it squarely at the dark haired man's chest. Roy's expression turned to shock, and then a final gunshot resounded. The forest was aquiver with wind for a moment or two, and then Roy collapsed, unconscious or dead.

Havoc didn't have a clue.

He reached into his breastpocket, and pulled out a cell phone with bloodied fingers. He dialed Hawkeye's number, his brain flashing and dimming and his eyes going out of focus. There was only dial tone, and then she picked up.

"Riza..." He whispered softly into the mouthpiece. "Riza, I need y-you to..." He caught the sight of the stars up above, and became trapped in their vastness. Did God exist after all? Was life just a game for His amusement? His grip on the phone loosened, and it fell, almost in slow motion, toward the earth. It encased itself in the folds of snow, his heavy body following suit. He closed his eyes, feeling an encompassing warmth spread across his fingertips.

He was home.


	20. Whisper

**I'm BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!**

**Janie is based loosely off of someone I know. And I'm well aware that Archer is a creepy, creepy pedophile bastard. :( I'm also well aware that some of you are going to hate me for this chapter. It's kind of complicated and you might not get everything. But I worked SUPER SUPER EXTRA HARD ON IT and the next one just for all of you so you better not gripe. I want stuff like "ZOMG! ThAt wuz SOUPER 5P35HL TARA!" :) Also, something weird I've been thinking about lately. I write three line paragraphs CONSTANTLY. It's weird. It's like my brain is programmed to do that with the way my computer monitor's set up. And it's always Dialogue, Description, Philosophical comment, Dialogue. I need to break the habit.**

**....**

**Memories consume**

**Like opening the wound**

**I'm picking me apart again**

**Umm...I've forgotten the rest, but you get the point. I -heart- Linkin Park. XP**

**Twilight Lovers: Stalking is BAD. If you stalk people, you're like Archer. As said above, a creepy, creepy pedophile bastard. XP Especially if you're over a hundred years old, cough cough, Edward C.  
**

**

* * *

**

_He was sitting by his sister's bedside, reading her a novel about werewolves that lived in a city. She was smoking cigarettes, a habit picked up from her older brother - not that she would ever let mother know.  
_

_"Janie," Jean said sadly, reaching for the cancer stick poised between her fingertips. He plucked it away from her, and smashed the orange tip in an ash tray. "You know these don't help."_

_"Give me a break." She said, exhaling in a puff of smoke. She was twenty-two years old. She had only a handful of friends, and not much of a high school education. Just a few of the consequences of having such randomly striking leukemia. She went around in a wheelchair now, and spent her waking moments in bed, watching horror flicks and playing with her three dogs._

_Jean frowned, and then took the pack of cigarettes from beside her pillow._

_"Oh, come on, JJ -"_

_"No. If mom finds out you've been smoking again, she's going to kill me."_

_Janie laughed - a deep, vibrant laugh that to outsiders seemed to convey happiness. On the inside, she consistently felt cold and numb. She had no idea where she would end up in five, ten, twenty years. Dead? Married? Or a fate worse than death or holy matrimony: loneliness. "You're such an asshole. Like you ever listen to what mom says anyway." _

_"No." He admitted, thinking back to his teen years, when he would sneak into the back of Heymans' truck in the dead of night. They would go on a road trip that would last weeks, coming back only when Janie reached another crucial stage of surgery. He'd go through the motions, donating pieces of his body and mind, and then leave once the pain stopped. "But I'm not going to get blamed for a relapse. Christ, Jane, sometimes I feel like you don't even care." _

_"I do care." She said, though she looked off to the side. Hollister, a small furry dog that always rested beside her on the bed, perked up a bit as she stroked his head. "Damn it, I do. Lemme have another. Please? I never got to finish the last, JJ." She eyed the book in her brother's hands, suddenly deciding she didn't care how it ended. She could have read it herself, but Jean hated the damn things, and would always play the characters in a pained voice with a pained expression, laughing sometimes. It was hilarious, and yet she couldn't be bothered to listen anymore. _

_"I'm sorry." _

_"Screw you, then." She pushed Hollister off the bed, and the dog gave a short yelp. He gathered himself and trotted out the door, going down the steps to the first floor of the house. Janie watched him go, a little regretful of the decision. The dog had warmed a spot on the bed, and now her blankets were going to get cold again. "This isn't even about the goddamn cigarettes, Jean." _

_He held her gaze. "Then what's it about?" _

_"You know I'm dying." She said, reaching for a bag of caramels on the dresser. They helped her when she didn't have a good supply of nicotine. She popped one in her mouth. "You know how much...how much I'm gonna miss you, right?" _

_Jean bit down on his lower lip, shaking his head up and down. "Sure thing, pudding cup." It was a pet name, established a long time ago. Janie loved her pudding cups. And her ramen noodles. And her toaster strudels. Crap, two minute meals that she was well used to with a mother always busy and a father that built houses as an excuse to be away. _

_"Jean..." She looked into his piercing blue eyes. "What's heaven like?"_

"Fuck!" He spat in a mess of blood and pain. Dim slits cracked, red and blue light - everywhere

Red, sticky, hot, all around him

He saw a face. He tried reaching for it -

_Stop screaming _

Maybe it wasn't screaming, it was the goddamn sirens - pulsing

He was so cold.

"Havoc - Havoc, God no!"

He felt a soft blanket wrapped around his freezing shoulders

Fine trickling blood, dead hands

He couldn't move

_Riza, please, I don't like it when you look - _

"Oh, fuck the pain -"

_Horrified. _

Janie. "It's just a cold, no worries." _Hide the torment_

Mustang. "You can't even save yourself, how are you supposed to save him?" _Hide the truth_

Mother. "I'm not going to spend my days watching her -"

He was picked up, carried on a stretcher, snow falling around in a gently blur

"Waste away while you drink yourself to death!"

ZIIIP. Like a body bag. Who was dead?

Heaven's beautiful, Jane.

No! No I can't be dead!

There's people just like you.

God, please

And everything's pure.

Riza - stop crying

And white.

Black.

* * *

Nine tubes of blood, and still they weren't relenting.

Edward kept his eyes on the needle, and on the calm expression of the scrubs-clad man who was drawing blood. They were checking to see if he had any abnormalities in his system, or if they had forced out his stomach contents hours too late. They had had him to change out of his old clothes, and they were sitting in a plastic bag by his bedside. He felt almost naked wearing the attire they'd chosen; more like an oversize shirt that opened shamelessly in the back.

"Shit..." He winced, uncomfortable with a piece of sharp metal gorged that deeply inside of his arm. He glanced at the clock, and saw that it was eleven o'clock. An hour ago the emergency center had called an ambulance from St. Paul's to take him, because St. Paul's had a rehab facility specifically for eating disorders.

He thought they were fucking out of their mind, and going way overboard.

So far, several people had come in.

A social worker from St. Paul's who asked him questions about the suicide attempt, the rape, the abuse as far as he could remember. He supposed he should have been reluctant to reveal any of the more twisted details, but he...loved the expressions she tried to hide. Two cops accompanied by a detective from the special victims unit showed up, too. And general Martin Creme, who spoke softly and merely said that if there was anything he could to do help, by God he'd do it.

Martin hinted that he was starting his own investigation into Mustang's whereabouts, and that Ed should just get some rest while he could. Edward hadn't known what to say himself. One one hand, he felt warmed; Martin acted almost like a grandfatherly figure, never questioning too harshly, just listening with an odd fondness. An odd sadness. Like it had been his own child that had been...well.

That's where it got uncomfortable, because Ed thought he'd die of shame.

"There we go." The doctor said with a smile, taking out the needle and replacing it with a rubber tube so that they wouldn't need to stick him to draw more blood. He taped a piece of white gauze over it. "We'll take this up to the lab and figure out what to do next, okay?" He set the vials of blood on a small tray, and exited the very small room, closing the door behind him.

Edward smiled complacently, not really feeling it. He wanted to know where Hawkeye had run off to. The woman had stepped out, telling him she was going to take a quick phone call from Jean, and never returned. He supposed she might have gone back to Central HQ to fill Falman and the others in on what had happened, but secretly hoped that wasn't the case.

There was nothing to do in the tiny room. It fit a bed, a counter with medical equipment, a clock, and a chair. That was all. He was surprised at how quickly time could pass when you were doing nothing. The minutes ticked by, his thoughts always entertaining him simply because he wasn't sure what to think about.

It was funny. Usually he was constantly aching for sleep, but here, it was impossible to sleep at all. He couldn't lay on his side because of the IV and the fact that the equipment would beep if he moved too much. The blood pressure pack wrapped around his arm automatically expanded, tightening around his already bruised arm. At first it had hurt, but he had become so used to it happening that it no longer bothered him. He had a feeling he would miss the familiar tightening later on.

* * *

There were six police cars stationed outside of Edward's apartment complex. Three from investigations and three for crowd control. Though not drawing a crowd was ironically impossible when it came to six police cars.

Martin started smoking a cigar.

Around him, the investigations team buzzed with a silent curiosity. They were used to digging around murder scenes, not rape scenes. But he had to know. He had a hunch, and that hunch directly correlated with Edward, Mustang, and the whole goddamn case.

"Sir." Penny Dale approached him in the minute darkness of Edward's apartment, a white mask over her face. Martin gave a split second smile - she deserved it, best in forensics and cheerful to boot, but frowned as he identified a plastic bag in her hands. "Blood samples, sir, and residue of a..." She looked away, afraid to say much else. "Sexually based nature."

"Run a DNA test, and there's our evidence. It's in and out, especially with the testimonial." But that wasn't it at all. The date Edward was attacked was March 11th, and the kid had said that Roy had been on heavy drugs at the time. If there was something Martin knew about drugs, it's that they were devastatingly mind-altering. All of the Charleston Murder killings seemed central to the escalating violence around Edward and his superior, whether anyone else cared to notice or not. Emotionally instability = senseless rampage of death?

"Excuse me." Penny said quietly, looking down at her shoes awkwardly. "I'm sorry, but I really don't feel at all comfortable working on this case."

"None of us do. It's a dirty business. But someone has to get to the bottom of this, Ms. Dale."

"Well - count me out. It's not just about my...personal relationship with him, exactly."

"What are you talking about?"

"The files, sir. The Charleston Murders. I know what you're up to, and frankly, I don't want to get involved." She looked up, and her eyes were wet and red with tears. Her fists were clenched at her side.

Martin was alarmed, having never seen the woman cry before. He led her past the other investigators, a hand on her back comfortingly. He took her into the boys' bedroom and let her sit down on an unmade bed. He was surprised at how neat Edward kept his home, however sparsely. The whole place reeked of depression and cough medicine. "Tell me what's going on. Are you afraid?"

"I didn't want to be, but I am. I've...I've found some things..." Her gaze traveled to the hands in her lap. "About the murders. Drugs, in the corpses' systems. Two of the victims were missing their hearts. And the girl - found in the bathtub at Lieutenant Havoc's house. There was a special type of fiber in the girl's hair. Cotton fibers, dyed blue, wound so tightly that it made me believe...my God, I think it was a military uniform, sir."

"You're absolutely positive?"

"I don't make mistakes," she admonished gently. "At least, I never have. And they're all blond. I saw Fullmetal's notes in the case file. Colonel Mustang had obvious issues with him, surely you can see the psychological implications?"

"I can, and I've thought the same. I'm sure that with all of your snooping, you also discovered that the first two victims on the list didn't live in or around Central City?"

She nodded, her eyes growing impossibly more wide and tearful. "The dates they were killed was when the army started moving back to Central from Ishbal and Xing. And to make matters sketchier, the very road they lived on was occupied by the Amestrian soldiers. All of the murder victims died from torture inflicted wounds. Roy Mustang helped oversee the interrogation and torture of prisoners of war!"

"How did you find this out?"

"Edward."

There was a knock on the wall, effectively interrupting their conversation. The young man standing in the doorway was a soldier, dressed in traditional Amestrian blue. He saluted briefly, and then explained that General Hidel wanted to talk to Martin Creme alone. Penny Dale sniffled for a moment or two.

"Go home." Creme commanded softly. "The work's getting to you. Don't breathe a word of what you know to anyone, understand?"

She nodded.

* * *

Frank Archer grinned broadly without showing his teeth, standing before the large closed door. He took a peek at the other end of the hallway, where he could hear masculine, familiar screams of pain, and cries of "Anesthesia! Anesthesia!" He chuckled. Blood sprayed against medical tools. It was lovely, really.

Jean Havoc would survive. He had seen the man himself, held Hawkeye against his shoulder and watched the proceedings of an operation preparation while trying to hide an obvious erection. The woman had no idea that he had touched her precious little subordinate too, praise God. She remained oblivious as always, caught between two walls. He had only managed to get rid of her by giving a long speech about forgiveness and love and happiness and sunshine and daisies. In short, go and visit the kid-fucking jackass Mustang for a little while.

He opened the door, double checking that none of the nurses were watching. Edward was sleeping, prettier than sin and breathing lightly. Archer looked briefly out of the glass in the door at the passing nurses outside, and then stepped further into the room. There was a plastic curtain hanging from the ceiling, and he pulled that quickly across.

Clearly, he didn't want to be disturbed.

The teen was wearing headphones, the sound of rock music coming through the CD player. Frank thought he looked disturbingly innocent like that; no anger, no fight, no hate, just soft yellow hair spilling around his shoulders like honey or silk. He made a vow to try not to hurt him, so sweet, so vulnerable.

He reached slowly forward and pulled the set off of the boy's head, small strands of gold catching in the light and brushing across his hand. He lowered himself into a chair beside the bed, and then started quietly stroking the teen's hair back, drawing his thumb extra carefully over the softer areas. Edward only breathed, sighing once into his pillow, his clenched fist the sole sign of the power and will he held in his body.

Archer couldn't help but notice how deliciously delicate the teen looked now that his old clothes had been stolen away, though he preferred him in something tight to something loose.

"I showed them my ID and they let me right in. Remarkable what power military connections give you, eh?" Archer whispered, attention never leaving the blond boy. Edward was probably still at his wit's end from all that had happened in the past few hours. Frank found his tongue flicking out once to wet his lips, wondering how hot and wet Edward's tiny mouth might be.

He had to restrain himself and remember the mission at hand. But God, all he wanted was a taste.

"Did you know Havoc nearly died trying to avenge you?" Archer asked the unconscious blond, reaching into his military jacket pocket and pulling out a small clear bottle. There was a syringe screwed into the cap. "He loves you more than you know. More than anyone ever will, I think." With his other hand he held another syringe, this one with a long protruding needle. He sighed, watching as the teen moved sightly in his sleep. "Well - it'll all be over soon."

* * *

"Sit down, General." Martin Creme offered, holding out a hand to the younger Elric's bed. "What's the occasion?"

"There's no occasion, I assure you." Hidel snapped, sniffing at the room's decorum. The investigations were dwindling down outside, but the noise was at a good level so that eavesdropping wasn't easy through the closed door. "It's about the nature of your - _investigation _itself. I don't approve."

Creme was taken aback. He blinked. "I don't believe it matters whether you approve or not. The ID isn't in your jurisdiction, sir."

"I don't approve because the big man upstairs doesn't approve. Do you understand? Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"I don't...I don't get what you're-"

"Elric's life is in danger because of all this, you fool!" Hidel bristled in anger and frustration. He took a great breath. "The point of assigning him to Investigations was to keep media attention away from him, away from the fact that he's useless, away from the fact that there'd be mass rioting if the people of this country found out we sent a fourteen and fifteen year old to the front lines. Not to mention the alchemical incidents involved-"

"Incidents?" Creme thundered, eyes widening. "Incidents? You call the transmutation of innocent women and children an incident?"

"So he told you."

"No. He never told me. But it's hard not to put the puzzle together, not when he's having nightmares around the clock, screaming about how you bastards forced him to-"

"That's enough."

* * *

Archer laid the needle on the bed, and then pushed himself roughly on the teen, anticipating struggle by pinning him down by the shoulders. Edward remained dormant at first, completely ignorant of the older man's worming tongue in his mouth. Then he started whimpering, gold eyes opening in confusion.

Frank swallowed his muffled scream with relish. _That's right. Cry all you want, angel. _The numbers on the heart monitor rapidly increased, and Frank remembered that if the boy moved to much, the nurses would be alerted. He pushed harder down against him, the grip on his shoulders going down to his wrists and tightening. Edward screamed again, now fully aware of the man's presence and his dark intentions. He was so old, so rough, so uncaring. At least Roy had been emotional; however angry at times.

Archer pulled both of the teen's wrists into one hand's grip, and the other was allowed to lightly touch the hem of the hospital attire before snaking to caress his hip. He raked his palms against the boy's waistline, fingers trembling with touch and sensation; Edward started shaking, hot tears soaking into the deepening kiss.

_Don't..._

Frank decided enough was enough. He would have his reward in the end. He abandoned the task of feeling what couldn't be seen, and snatched up the syringe needle. The teen's eyes widened in fear, and before he knew it the dark haired man had one hand clasped firmly on his mouth and the other holding the needle close to his throat. He knew well not to struggle.

"It's not your fault, of course," Archer said. "Well. If only you had someone that could save you, darling. That's impossible now, of course, not with Jean Havoc drowning in his own blood..."

Ed made a stifled noise of protest.

"What did you tell them, sweetheart?" The man asked in a sickeningly kind voice. "Hopefully nothing you were supposed to keep locked behind that pretty little face of yours..."

Immediately the teen started to struggle, the machines going off quietly as indicated by an unknown speaker in the room. Edward prayed that the nurses were looking at the computer screens just outside the room, in the lobby area. But they usually didn't pay any attention to the monitors, convinced that it was the fault of patients trying to get into a comfortable position.

Archer's veins pulsed with an adrenaline rush, ever fueled by the teen's efforts to escape his grip. He pressed the small blond into the bed, relishing the feel of his muffled scream against his hand. "You can't fight me, Edward, why are you trying?" He said softly, leaning down close to his face. Warm heat emanated from him, along with the unmistakably tortured scent of stolen innocence. "I'm just making sure you know the facts...that no one can protect you anymore..."

A fresh cry of protest came from Edward's throat, his eyes squeezing tightly shut, as the man's tongue licked at his ear.

Oh, he _was _sweet after all. He noted that the teen had shrunk into himself, his eyes quivering in that odd way of fear and disbelief. Archer thought it was absolutely adorable. Without meaning to, he looked Edward's body over, hidden under the thin sheet. "Do you know what this is?" He held up the syringe, shortly pushing on the end and releasing any troublesome air bubbles.

"Allow me to enlighten you." The man looked at the syringe as though it were the most inspirational object ever known to man. "Pottassium Chloride's an interesting drug, Fullmetal. Stops the heart almost instantly. Now, I've been given orders to kill you - hey, the Fuhrer's, not mine - but I've got ulterior motives in mind, sweetheart. Either way, you lose, so I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

* * *

**Mustang/Havoc angst next chapter, anyone? Hehehe. And BLOOD. Lots and lots of tragic BLOOD. Muahahahahaha!!!!**


	21. Hellfire

**I am SO sorry that Hawkeye's OOC in this story. I realize I have a problem with that. But it's just so tempting to add the dramaz! Besides, I have a feeling that she's not as emotionally cold as the anime might portray her to be. I've heard she's a lot more kickass in the manga. Fact is I almost became a fan of Royai in this chapter. Almost. _*sara bores holes into the back of your head and lets ur brains leak out.* if ur gonna melt ur brain on nasty royai then why don't we get rid of it in a less painful way ^_^_**

**Anyway. What happens in this chapter is totally implausible...just work with me, m'kay? The important thing is that I tried! :D I honestly rushed through this chapter and didn't really explain much. But still. I got impatient and wanted to update. :D  
**

**Horrifically long author's note over.**

**Never mentioned this before - most of my long sentences are purposefully done incorrectly. It's just part of my writing style. **

**Also - yes, Roy's totally lost it. As about everyone in this fic. :P  
**

* * *

In all of her nightmares - and she had many - she was spared when it came to death. Her dreams panned out in the same expected atmosphere: a battlefield, and how quaint. Somehow, some way, a stray bullet in the dark or the assassin's dagger would always evade her and go straight for some masculine crutch. She never caught the face of the man who consistently threw himself in front of her body. But he was wearing a uniform, and had a sturdy build, sometimes like a raven, sometimes like a dove. That never made any sense to her. It was just the only description she could find for the two.

The dream might dissolve into oblivion, raising some psychological curtain for another show of her undisclosed fears. Light cracks of silver working through a broken and smudged windowpane, mellow shades of wallpaper accompanied by the slow mournful stirring of a ceiling fan. One rotation, two rotations. There was little furniture; another difference, for she recalled beds that had smelled vaguely of rotting flesh. Just by the door was where a crimson-eyed man had met Ishballa.

The place was hard to forget. Though in a dream state, it wasn't so much the ambiance and the cruel memories as much as the occupied, creaking chair in the center of the room. Roy Mustang.

Dead.

The dream, she decided, was a metaphor for her sins. She wasn't always going to be able to protect him. But maybe, just maybe, he hadn't been the one that needed protecting.

"It's funny." The very much alive man said quietly on the hospital bed at St. Lito's medical center. He pointed to his chest, and at the long white and red bandage that wound around his middle. He smiled a bit, the brief glimpse of teeth doing little for the pallor of his face. "Did you know he shot me in the same place I shot him?" His mouth was too dry, too dusty. He could have passed as a man stranded in the desert, all sweat and clammy skin and slow heart. But he knew better. Maybe the vulture circling the madness was guilt, not the threat of a firing squad.

"I know."

Roy shook his head, up and down, slowly, uncertainly. It truly was two-sided. The illusion. The illusion that he might have been free, if only he had stopped - stopped the kid's screaming and just - pulled that damn trigger, then turned the fucking gun on himself. Two bodies, that was all. Two lives. Two miserable existences. Only when the sticky blood coated hair, clothes, pavement - might they have been truly happy. Ah, but the key word was might, wasn't it? "You know," He continued, his tongue flicking out at dry lips, his subconscious remembering the sweet warmth of yesterday, "I think we were both aiming for the heart. To kill. Why do you think that is, Riza?"

She cleared her throat, her control crumbling to pieces around her. "I think," she started out, her words possessing the diamond edge she knew he loved. Maybe she still wanted that rough, hot touch. The touch he had teased her with, the cruel black eyes that had left her breathless. But all of the subtle whisperings in her ear, the hidden caresses that made her tight and weak all at once, had never amounted to what she craved. Was she mourning for her own losses, then? Not that the fucker had violently stolen whatever innocence Ed had left, but that he never said three pretty words. "I wish he would have killed you...Colonel."

But Roy was ever so patient, ever so silent, not batting an eye. She had seen Roy dead before, yes, in her dreams. But those dreams had echoed with the sound of her own screaming. Here, even as he lay completely vulnerable with an IV in his arm and the residue of blood drying on his forehead, she no longer could take any pity. "It's good that he shot me, though. If I'd just been-" He took a breath, stiffening slightly in self-indignation, "_Arrested, _I wouldn't have been so close. And so far." He stopped himself from looking at the door. "From _him._"

No matter how many times Riza had seen lust swimming in a man's eyes, it was never as sad or revolting as it was then. For her, it was all the proof she needed. Her throat latched itself off from oxygen, her teeth clenching, some maternal creature roaring. She slammed her fist into his jaw, hard and fast, his head jerking to the side. Time seemed to still, and she saw his eyes go blank, staring far away into the distant memory or future. Maybe he glimpsed what he'd done. Or so she would have liked to imagine.

"If I had the choice," She murmured in a low growl, coming ever closer to him so that she could see the mottled bruise flowering across his skin - _like all of those marks on that child's body -_ "If I could take every second you touched him and turn it into a living hell, you know I would."

He glared at her from beneath messy black bangs, spitting blood from his mouth that turned his lips a luscious red. "I've seen hell. You don't know the first goddamn thing about it."

She opened her mouth to speak. Looked more deeply into his eyes. Saw genuine emotion, genuine fear, genuine regret. Saw fire and thunderheads of smoke, rising thousands of feet in the air, the flames feeding off of the writhing black flesh of the innocent. And she closed her mouth, deciding she didn't want to address that particular truth. Then she would have to admit her own weaknesses.

She pulled her purse off of the bedside table, her hand accidentally brushing the clanking metal handcuffs. Her eyes became weighted with an influx of tears, and she forced herself to tread heavily towards the door. Her hand rested on the cold knob, briefly. Silently.

_There's a fine line..._

"Oh, and Roy." She turned back to face him, ruby eyes sparkling with hate. "Do me a favor. When you're in prison, find a way to hang yourself."

_Between love..._

_And hate.

* * *

_

Edward kept his eyes clenched tightly shut, his mouth still covered by Archer's unrelenting hand. The man was simply grinning down at him - freakishly, more unbridled joy in that brief moment than Ed had ever encountered in his years of military service. He felt himself whimper as the man leaned closer down toward him, the fatal syringe clasped in pale fingers brushing underneath his bangs and across his forehead threateningly.

"I would love to murder you." Archer whispered longingly in his ear. "To hear your breathing stop...to see those eyes just _fade._ But then I think of all the things I'd like to do to you, to your body. And I remember that killing you isn't my decision - no, you have a deeper trench to fill than that."

Ed couldn't think; it was all too familiar a feeling, being frightened and suffocated and alone at the same time. All he knew was that for some reason, he was starting crying harder, even if he didn't understand why. The intention to kill. Archer was the murderer, had to be. But maybe that was just paranoia. And if he admitted that, he had been wrong about everything all along. He would also have to admit that the man that wanted him so badly was the man that killed his brother.

Was he the reason Alphonse...had died...? No...

"It won't be long now. All we have to do is wait." Archer ran his tongue slowly over the blond's cheekbone, making him twist and turn in a scramble to get away. The man pushed himself on him, the frantic movement below increasing his breathing. His erection was growing painfully hard; it took all of his strength, all of his efforts, not to fuck the kid then and there.

Ed didn't dare make eye contact. He ignored the wetness on his cheek, eyelids fluttering as he tried to imagine himself anywhere else. He thought of kicking the man straight in the crotch, thrilled by the idea of him crumpling to the floor in pain. But not with a potentially lethal injection almost seductively close to his throat. Somebody had to be coming for him. Somebody, anybody, had to be wondering what was wrong.

"Now, you can keep your mouth shut, can't you?" Archer asked him softly, removing his hand. Edward did nothing, ignoring the words and simply watching to see what would happen next. He didn't like the sinister smirk on the man's lips, and certainly didn't like the way he licked out at them as though savoring the taste of his skin. Frank's hand slipped surreptitiously under the lining of the hospital gown, reaching between his legs. Ed gasped, and out of some spontaneous reflex, slapped him across the face.

Archer froze, his expression darkening. Ed tried to scoot back, still tears staining his eyes. Archer grabbed his arm tightly, yanking him close with a gaze that burned with hatred and desire. Edward took a shaking breath, realizing that he was being pushed back down, the man's larger form completely overshadowing his own. He tried to return the glare, but didn't feel the courage he wished he had.

_What if I had a choice? _He thought to himself, numbing his body against the cruel, cold touches that shook with longing. He could feel his heart slamming like water against a floodgate, much like the tears that hurt his eyes; unstoppable, and only succeeding in heightening the blood pressure of the dark haired man. Ed stifled another gasp, the wet muscle of tongue licking gingerly at his exposed collarbone, sharp teeth biting at his neck and interspersed with clumsy, fast kisses.

Archer made to capture his lips again, but Ed gathered a last respite of courage and spit at him. The man froze for a moment, and then wiped the saliva off with a shrug, staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and disgust. In one movement he tugged the pillow from beneath the blond's head, and shoved it over his face. Immediately the boy started kicking and screaming, fingers clawing at the man's wrists in a panic. _I could kill him, right now, so easily...

* * *

_

Roy couldn't fall asleep. It wasn't so much the pain. He had once gone to bed with cannon fire raging in the background, gone to bed with soldier's corpses lying right next to him. No, this wasn't a physical barrier that kept him awake. It was the knowledge that he had hurt more than one person he honest-to-God loved, and very deeply.

Edward had always been his burden. Ever since he had lured the broken, weary child from a life as a cripple to a dog of the military, the kid had been both a sacrifice and a safety net. He had never expected to love him. The thought had never occurred to him. He had _expected _equivalency, of course - _expected _certain people to take advantage of Edward, himself included, no matter the morality tags attached. But instead of fading into the background like an obedient dog should have, the boy turned into something more. Something more intimately golden, in his eyes, at least.

And he had...

Completely ruined all of that hope, all of that fire, all of that beautiful light.

He had been thinking about all of this for some time, lying on his side and staring off at the wall with his shaking fingers clutching at the pillowcase. If someone visited - visited in the loosest sense of the word, because it was mainly investigators and nurses who would shoot him dirty looks and softly spoken accusations - then he would mutter one or two words, answer a question, but let no emotion weave itself into his tone. Officer Falman had come in at one point. His hands were in his coat. His old, somber eyes resting without judgment on the pale dilapidated curtains on the window. He said a few things. That he didn't hate him, that he was upset, surely, and he filled him in on all of the workings of the military.

Roy was being dishonorably discharged from military service. They weren't making a large deal out of it. The paperwork was being filed. His subordinates were being transferred across the country. Edward's fate was unknown; Falman implied that his position might be at stake as well, though whether the higher ups had any reason to let him go he wasn't sure of. He didn't voice it, but he hypothesized that there was going to be a lot of people that wanted the kid dead.

Now all Roy could do was wonder what would happen to Ed now. He still needed him. He thought his heart might burst inside of his rib cage if he had to go another minute without holding him.

The door opened, and one of the nurses walked in. She quickly gave a half smile, but her eyes were cold. "Time to change your bandage." She said curtly, shutting the door behind her and going over to the bedside. She pulled the curtain across for privacy, and then turned to the counter and opened a drawer, withdrawing a heavy roll of gauze.

He sat up, wincing a bit as the plastic IV tube in his arm seemed to shift. "Where's Hawkeye?"

The nurse looked up briefly, and then back down, working on unwrapping a line of gauze. She fetched more medical supplies from various drawers, tubes of antiseptic and such. "She's smoking, I think."

He nodded. "Is she okay?"

"She was crying pretty badly last I saw."

For Riza, that was almost unheard of. He didn't get it. What he'd done. Had it really shaken her so badly? Why was she falling apart at the seams? He felt the answer was far beyond any he could grasp.

He wanted to ask where Ed was, how he was doing, but felt that would do more harm than good. He needed to talk to him. Apologize. But God, how could he apologize for what he'd done to him? Edward would never forgive him. Hell, he was actually frightened of him. But if Roy never got the chance to tell him how he felt, then the world would collapse. There was no other explanation. "Excuse me, but..."

"Oh, I forgot." The nurse said monotonously, her eyes drawn in a frown that caused her eyebrows to clash in an ugly unified form. She reached into the interior pocket of her short dress, and pulled out a thin spiral bound notebook.

Roy watched her with unflinching curiousity as she came over to him, and set it down on the bedside table. She backed away with her hands in the air, a completely bewildered expression on her face. "I swear I haven't read it. Probably some freakish military conspiracy scum I don't want to mess with. The Fuhrer sent Colonel Archer to bring it to you - there's instructions, but I wasn't told what they were."

Roy twisted forward a bit in the handcuffs, cringing as the metal dug into his wrist. He managed to take hold of the notebook.

"All I did was follow the orders to give it to you."

Once she left the room, carrying the remnants of uneaten food with her, Roy flipped through the pages of the notebook, completely at odds at why the Fuhrer was suddenly passing notes like an undignified school girl.

It was only then that he realized that all of the pages were absolutely blank - there was only one page with any writing, and that was a phone number, scrawled in Archer's precise handwriting.

There was a pen lodged in the spirals. Roy's eyes widened in comprehension.

* * *

Archer felt the boy's body weakening beneath him, the muffled screams losing their power. He felt such sick, sweet pleasure building up in his system; just the ability to hold such a small vulnerable life down, with the ability to kill him, to end him. But he had to give him credit. Edward fought hard.

He kicked him and hit him and managed to scrape his nails across the man's arm, but Archer only smiled from the pain, noticing how the movement started to wane into frailty, the screaming fading into desperate whimpers and choked sobs.

"Sometimes I wonder if I hate you or love you. I think a lot of people wonder that about you, Ed." He said as though discussing something easy or trivial. Edward didn't listen, his thin fingers wrapping around Archer's wrist and squeezing tightly. Frank realized the boy was trembling badly, writhing automatically as his brain desperately worked for a method of survival. Every fiber of his being was aching for oxygen, and Archer wasn't merciful enough to let him have it.

"Anyway," Archer continued, grinning and pressing the pillow harder against his face, "It'd be a shame to kill something as pretty as you, wouldn't it?" Ed's back arched, his head swimming vaguely; everything burned. He kept trying to take in gulps of air, but found only dioxide and coarse cotton.

Above the bed, the monitor revealed his heart rate was dropping rapidly.

The cell phone in Archer's pocket began to buzz, and he frowned. That was it. That was the signal that it was time to move. Without a care in the world he removed the pillow from the boy's face, small strands of gold attaching themselves to the fabric static.

Edward sucked in a breath of air, coughing, curling into himself on his side. He breathed heavily for a moment or two, sweat dripping from his golden bangs, and then shouted, "You mother fuc-" Archer slammed his hand against the boy's head. Amber eyes rolled back, the lids closing as he collapsed from exhaustion and impact. He made weak sounds in his throat, the expression on his face contorted in pain.

The heart rate numbers climbed back to a normal pace.

"Now, lovely, it's time we got going." Archer said snidely, his thin lips curling up into a smile. He pulled the boy quickly off the bed, ignoring his shriek of protest and cuffing him upside the head. He removed the pulse taker from Ed's index finger, then turned his body sharply and took out the rubber IV stopper.

Edward caught himself as he was shoved against the wall, like a man being pulled over and interrogated by police. Likewise, Archer moved behind him as though to search him, but the cold fingers went straight for the string holding the gown against his slender body. He stiffened against the touch, confused and disoriented from having nearly suffocated. The man pulled the gown over his head and let it fall to the ground, and then moved to the bag of clothes on the bedside table.

"What are you doing?" Ed dared to ask, watching the man warily. Archer had picked up the needle in a clear threat.

"Get dressed. We need to move."

* * *

A bright light filled the once-somber room, illuminating the sheet of notebook paper placed beside the shiny pair of handcuffs.

Roy heard a clink, a snap, and then the metal fell from his wrist to the floor with a clang. It was such a simple transmutation; relatively elementary. The nurse was a fool.

With the blue ink pen he had been supplied, he drew two identical circles on the back of his hands. If he was going to get his way, he had to be ready to fight, no matter the consequences. He needed to find Edward.

He sat up straighter in the bed, and then put his feet to the floor. He was still in plainclothes, the bandage fresh and white underneath the black cotton shirt. He checked the windows, making sure he wasn't under any surveillance, and found the way was clear. He didn't care if the cops were waiting in ambush. If they had a sedative waiting.

He would roast them all to find the kid.

...Maybe it was the morphine talking.

* * *

Jean's grandparents had come from over the Briggs mountain range, from a place populated by light haired, light eyed Aryans. Famine and a failing economy had pushed them across the landscape, dragging nothing but the clothes on their backs and the knowledge of common fishermen. In Amestris they found no water on the great plains and rolling hills - they'd settled down near Risembool and exchanged their nets for produce.

Never was profitable; by the time Jean was in high school, his own parents were poor and knew nothing of fishing or gardening, and his father painted houses, did odd jobs, came home smelling like oil and strange women.

Still, Jean appreciated the land. He appreciated the isolation. The neighbors owned cows, and the earthen brown creatures always had broken bells strapped to their necks so that they couldn't run away so very easily. The bells didn't clang; they rattled from the grit and dust and dirt caked along the edges.

Rattled. Like a snake; rattled, like his own heavy, dying breathing.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Sargeant Feury bit down on his lower lip, a cool bead of sweat dangling precariously on his forehead. The room was freezing, but the anxiety was reaching its peak. He sighed shakily, leaning back in his chair, surveying the damage done to perhaps the most approachable of the Colonel's subordinates. "Did he...did he split your lip, too?"

Jean thought for a moment, slowly, feeling like a blob of gelatin melting into sticky juice. He flicked his tongue out to his pale lips, and tasted the copper swelling. "Oh - no," He muttered vaguely, his eyes shifting from the bespectacled young man to the ash tray, the clock, the ash tray, the man, his own eyelashes, gazing upward, oh - look, a minute's passed, and I haven't answered the question, have I? "The kid did that. Lot of strength for a..." Bean? Shrimp? Midget? He bit back a sarcastic laugh. "Fuck."

"Why didn't he fight the Colonel, then?"

Jean's breath hitched involuntarily. "Don't know. Cigarette. Need a cigarette."

Cain thought of disobeying, knowing full well that he had a pack of Camels in his fading midnight blue uniform, but also knowing full well that the pretty tight-lipped nurse had specifically told him that Jean was a fucking idiot and in no condition to be shortening his life. "Well, okay, but don't let the Lieutenant know." His dark eyes turned a little softer, reminding Havoc of a kicked puppy. Cain reached into his pocket and pulled out the cigarette pack, and then handed Jean one. He lit it up for him, staring deeply into the flame of the lighter, and at Jean's closed eyelids, his face a picture of bliss and escape.

But in the flame he saw the smoldering expression of Roy Mustang, and immediately flinched back, cutting off the base of the light with a quick flick of his thumb.

"No, I'm not going to let Riza know. She'll find out, because she's smart for a woman, but fuck. Fuck, I won't let her know." Havoc said around the cigarette. He poised it between his fingers and blew out a clumsy smoke ring, watching as it spread apart and disappeared into oblivion. Life. Life was one, big, fucking smoke ring, wasn't it?

Took a lot of effort, a lot of chance, a lot of chemical arrangements and atoms and protons and a bunch of shit he couldn't understand. Then you were born, and then you lived. And the more you lived, the more you realized that life itself was just spiraling outward like the galaxy and the planets and the universe, and one day it would just disappear - no matter at all, just plasma, and chalk.

"Did you see him yet?" Cain asked.

Jean blinked. "See who?" He fumbled.

"Edward."

"Oh - no. Don't think he knows I was shot. Don't think anyone knows. Did you see him?"

"No." Feury replied, cheeks turning a deep rose. He looked at the floor, at anything but Havoc's face. He didn't think he had ever felt so helpless in his life. Three of the strongest people he'd ever known were crumbling before his eyes. "I can't face him. Seeing him after all that's happened? I don't know if I could take that."

He had never before seen Edward as vulnerable - he saw him as tough, shining, far more mature than the average sixteen year old ought to be but with an undeniable immaturity about him as well. And he didn't want to let that image go.

The same was true for Mustang. He didn't want him to be evil. It just wasn't Mustang.

"Yeah, I understand. Thanks for coming out, though. You didn't have to do that."

"Riza told all of us what happened over the phone. There's a lot going on...a lot I don't understand. The military's talking about whether or not they're going to execute the Colonel."

"Would they do that?"

"I don't know. There's a gag order on the media to prevent any real problems, but no one really knows about what's happened anyway. I think Ed's the one in more danger."

"Why?"

"I - I don't know. Something about the war. I'm no good with politics." Feury hung his head, inwardly beating himself for failing to live up to expectations. Jean gave him a sympathetic glance, and then opened his mouth to speak, deciding to change the topic to something pleasant. Like weather. Like how nice the weather was. All snowy and cold and wet. Yes, weather.

Funny thing about weather. It can change whenever it wants at the drop of a hat. One minute there's a technicolor ribbon dangling from the sky, the next, a funnel spins out of control and demolishes all that you work for.

There was a loud bang, and Jean jerked his head toward the door, only to find a man's body slammed against the glass and sliding down with a high pitched squeal. Blood painted the window in a shining crimson.

"What the fuck-"

* * *

Roy winced as the man's body was flung against the door, his copper eyes sliding way back into the black reaches of his skull. The oxygen in the air quivered with the recent transmutation, shuddering in heat. He heard screams, screams digging into the soft parts of his brain and heart, reminding him of tortures long past.

No, this man wasn't going to die, even if his head was bleeding profusely.

He stomped forward, ignoring the frantic rushing of feet behind and around him, clutching at the doctor's shirt and hoisting his limp body up against the door. "I'm not planning on killing you, but fuck this up and I might not have a choice." He snarled in the man's face. "I'm looking for Edward Elric. Where is he?"

The doctor choked and spluttered, weak fingers scrambling to Roy's wrist in a pathetic attempt at release. "I don't - no idea who that is - please, I have a daughter-"

_I have a son. _

Roy's eyes narrowed, and he struck the man across the face with a hard blow that caused his head to careen to the side, blood and spit shooting like stars from red-stained teeth. He shook him hard. "Where the fuck is he?!"

He felt a tingling at the nape of his neck, his breathing speeding up to milestone levels; he dropped the doctor on instinct, his body turning to find a woman that had utterly failed at trying to tranquilize him stealthily, and cuffed her once upside the head. She fell to the ground in a heap, the maneuver rendering her unconscious. He started shaking, realizing how sourly his mission was turning, but there was no going back.

His plan was simple. Grab the kid, and leave.

"Listen up." He shouted so that everyone in the hallway could hear. He felt a dozen pairs of eyes, a dozen trembling bodies, a dozen minds concocting ideas to play the hero and knock him out. There would be no heroes. "Fuck with me again, and you're all dead." He pressed two fingers to the back of another hand, lightly touching the transmutation circle etched there in ink pen.

"What do you want?"

"You know what I want." Roy said darkly, teeth chattering despite his constant reminders to get a grip on himself. "I want Edward Elric. You all know he's here. You all know who I am. What I can do. And if you're smart, you'll tell me where you're hiding him."

* * *

Edward kept his head bowed, as instructed. Archer had forced him into clothes that Havoc had prepared for him in case of release to the crisis center. A dark and baggy sweatshirt, long sleeved as the hospital had instructed; wrist cutters weren't permitted to show off their scars. The hood was pulled far over his head to prevent anyone from identifying him too easily. Sure, not the greatest disguise, but good enough. Temporarily.

His jeans were dark, his converse the only thing he dared look at. He was being pulled roughly and swiftly down the busy hallway, Frank's grip unbearably tight on his wrist. He tried to keep his distance but always found himself forced closer, as though the slightest body contact gave the man a sick high.

"Where are you taking me?" He asked, not really caring or all that interested. He supposed the man would force him into his car, drive him somewhere far away, do God knows what to him. There was a slithering, slimy thought that he might end up chained to a wall like Al, the sweet blade of a knife cutting into his flesh as easily as butter. Strangely, he wanted death.

_Jean Havoc, swimming in his own blood..._

_No. _

He heard himself choke on a sob, and shuddered as Frank looked back with wide and cold eyes. He half expected to be hit, and was disappointed when the man simply turned and ignored him, deciding not to risk being noticed in the middle of an obvious abduction.

Edward clung to that thought. If someone - anyone - noticed something wrong, they'd help. They'd tackle Frank to the ground, and he'd run. He'd run. But what could he do? Lag behind? Curse him out? Try attacking him with what little strength he had left, biting him, maybe?

He remembered the needle, so precariously close, and weighed the risk. Die now, or die later?

He became lost in the dilemna, and before he knew it Archer had come to a jeering halt. He almost ran into the man, and stared at his imperceptible face. "Well, hello." Frank said with a cheerful grin to the stunned crowd before him.

Edward froze, finding Roy's dark opal eyes among the bystanders. Among the hostages, he realized with a pang, identifying the transmutation circles on the man's hands. He cursed, the situation unable to be rationalized; Roy wanted him, Archer wanted him. That much was clear. But the grin Frank held on his lips was friendly in a frightening way. Were...were they working together...?

He shook his head, taking slow, shaking breaths. Roy met his gaze with a flash of understanding, the silence only serving to heighten his screaming emotions. Ed felt trapped; completely and utterly trapped. "No, no, not you, not you. Roy, fuck..." His voice cracked, tears spilling over in his aurelent eyes, "You fucking murderer! You fucking killed him! You killed Al-" Archer rushed up to him from behind, clamping a hand over his mouth so that only a strangled yelp of surprise could be heard.

"Shh, come on lovely." Archer whispered in his ear, his hand tingling gently as cold tears brushed the sensitive skin. "This is the last time anyone's going to see you alive, beautiful, so put a smile on that face of yours..."

Roy sucked in a breath, fingers twitching together even if his special gloves were absent. "Let him go, you bastard."

"I don't think I want to do that, _Colonel_." Archer yanked back the boy's hood violently, releasing the light hair in a soft cascade of blond. He smirked into the back of the boy's head, and Ed whimpered in his throat, his eyes closing so tightly he felt they might implode. "I must say, you've done a fabulous job with this one..."

Roy hissed low, stepping forward. "What the fuck are you talking about? Don't think I won't burn you to a fucking crisp just because you've got your filthy fucking hands on him. I'd rather kill him than let filth like you-"

"Language!" Archer snapped, an afterglow of sparks in his eyes. "And you interrupted me. How rude." He loved being the center of the show, the ringleader of the circus. Not just a pawn in the game, but the whole fucking chess set. And he was. Everyone watched him, concerned for the slut and concerned for their own pathetic existences. Well, he would just have to satiate their curiosities, wouldn't he? He knew what they wanted.

"I'll give you to the count of ten." Mustang warned, watching as the other man's eyes slowly filled with burning lust.

"Ok. Count. I'm waiting," Archer shrugged, nuzzling into Edward's sweetly scented hair. "Always..._waiting..._" There, that was the word, the magic word. Come on, Mustang. Burn me. You know you want to do it. You know you want to kill these people, so do it.

Roy hesitated, lip trembling briefly. "Ten."

Archer chuckled deeply. _Charlie loves his games. _

* * *

**Figured this was long enough. There should be more very soon - I was going to continue to the end with this, but it's late and I have school tomorrow. Sorry if you're all confuzled about something. It'll all become clear. I had a hard time with perspectives; might have something to do with it. Next chapter most likely WILL be very violent and even more of a mess than this, but - fails epicly - **

**Thanks for reading, and hopefully you're not going to abandon me for the sheer shitasticness of this. :D**


	22. Damnation

**Guess what I did because I love you so much? XP I replaced Fuery's name exactly 27 times. There you go. :D No longer misspelled.  
**

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Jean's eyes were wide, seeming to tremble as the full weight of the words shouted outside the door seemed to resonate around the inside of his brain. At first he could do nothing but breathe, oh so quietly, as though the slightest decibel's difference would attract Roy's attention. It didn't matter that a wall separated them, it didn't matter that Mustang had one target and one target only. Jean knew, knew by the slick and clammy feel of sweat creeping along like a foul insect along his cool flesh, that Roy's mind had turned murderous, chaotic, and desired the medicinal power of lust and control.

And suddenly, he took a look at himself. Broken body, clean white bandage wrapped around his chest, pale skin, a sluggish feeling that permeated his senses and made the whole world seem sunken in despair and monotony. What the fuck am I doing here?!

"Listen up!"

His body went as rigid as steel planking, the dark tones of Roy's voice burning right into the memories of violence the night before. The truth finally unleashed like some feral animal, dangerous and dragging sanity along a path of disaster. Fuery had stopped too, his eyebrows coming together and his fists clumped and shaking. Jean could hear his breathing, hitching in all the right places, as though the voice outside the door held no relevance, no sign of the sin committed right before their eyes and without the slightest hint of intervention. He might have believed that Kain would resume the conversation as though murder hadn't just come knocking on the door, blood dripping down the glass window of the door as Roy's voice vibrated against hearts and unrealized emotions.

"Fuck with me again and you're all dead." A beat of silence, giving Jean all the time in the world to imagine, to slip into his mind, trembling and wondering why he was still -

Trapped.

In.

A.

Fucking.

Bed.

Like some kind of infant, like a fucking kid, helpless and dim-witted and only allowed to watch the world go by in a fireworks display of ruin and crimson and smoking guns.

"What do you want?"

"You know what I want."

Jean's eyes widened impossibly, and before he knew it, before the words slipped like some kind of holy sentiment from Roy's lips, he was throwing the blankets off of his body and making to knock the fucker's lights out. "I want Edward Elric." Four pretty, dark, heavy syllables pushed Jean from the bed and into some funeral pyre of rage. He had taken the bullet as compromise, to save the boy's life, to keep sin from taking him again. Roy could still stand, could threaten, could hunt the kid down if he wanted, but Jean damned him for trying, because even the devil didn't let a man die twice. He sucked in a curse, biting down on his lower lip and cutting through with the pressure of a leaden knife, as pain burst down his chest and created a steady blossoming of blood that spread from split stiches all the way to the edge of the bandage.

A small drip of blood swam against his teeth, turning them red and painting a picture of fevered madness and rage that he felt had become his calling card. Fuery watched him for a moment, unable to speak, unable to do anything but glance back and forth at the phone on the bedside table, too afraid to reach for it and call the police but the instinct of helplessness all too much to handle, when - damn - damn it all - he was mesmerized, mesmerized by the beast awakened in Jean Havoc. Laidback, sentimental, ex-druggie Jean Havoc, now with ragged tiredness haunting his eyes and deepening the lines in his should-have-been youthful features, the glint in his expression now more the midnight cold of lazuli than aquamarine.

And it was that madness, that foolish but well deserved madness, that made Fuery push forward with all of his might in an attempt to force the blond back onto the bed. "You can't - you have no idea what the fuck he'll do to you if you-" He said in a hoarse whisper.

Jean fought hard, his struggles much stronger than anticipated. He fed on the shock, the surprise, his brain only dimly aware of his surroundings and the shadow of dying blood-red sun on the wall - his head was too filled with images of Edward, so fucking strong but so fucking vulnerable, unable to tear himself away from the creatures that lurked in the dark. The adults had lied; there were monsters, and they were more frightening than all of the fairy tale hellions combined. "I don't care, I don't fucking care - I'm not letting him -"

"Lieutenant, you're drugged. You're not thinking clearly."

"Do you really think we have fucking time to think!?"

"Well, you're not making it any easier diving right in the middle of a hostage situation!" Fuery contended adamantly. He loosened his grip a bit on Havoc's shoulders, against violence and certainly against violence toward a commanding officer, but readying his nerves for a swift punch if it became necessary. As much as he would have liked to be the sidekick to Havoc's endeavors, become a hero, watch the sly smirk slide like melted butter off the Colonel's smug ass face, he knew that neither could do so under the circumstances. "Lieutenant - sir - Jean, look, you have to calm down, calm down right this minute, and let me call the police, do you understand that?"

Havoc wasn't listening, his ears deaf to anything but his pulse.

Fuery retaliated by shaking him, hard, the blond head bobbing violently on strong, firm shoulders. "I said, do you understand that?" He shook at his own words, his courage seeming to stem from an unknown source. Kain Fuery telling the Lieutenant to get a grip was in itself a paradox.

Jean slumped back, defeated, a quiet kind of shock spreading from the tips of his fingers into the depths of his bleeding chest. It hurt to lie still. "I'm..." He trailed off, sinking back into the pillows and coaxing his heart to slow down. But he couldn't stop the pictures, the film of derision, flash after flash of what could and would happen to the kid if he couldn't garner the courage to take quick, brisk, violent action.

Fuery put on a calculated mask: robotic and passive, the personality he shifted into like any good soldier. The innocent puppy eyes darkened into something more emotionless, a true dog of the military, responsibilities and protocol and proper administrations outweighing the urge to act on his gut. He dialed for the cops, and when a cool voiced woman picked up, very professionally - he recognized her, Ed worked with her at a distance - he forced professionalism over the panic that choked off every rational thought. "This is Sergeant Kain Fuery of the defense division. We're going to need backup, there's a hostage situation underway."

"Is anyone injured?"

"Not sure. He doesn't have a weapon, but he's an alchemist."

"Can you identify him?"

"Roy Mustang."

Jean counted the minutes, every second, every millisecond, listening to Fuery give all the little details in such a calm, dignified tone that he hardly believed it was Fuery. The capability to respond like that, with such minute precision, was almost unheard of in his opinion. The whole situation seemed surreal, and he began to question his own eyes and senses. Dubiously he held his hands out before himself, and turned them over and around, wondering if they were the same that had pulled a trigger, held a small body close to make the crying stop, touched Riza Hawkeye, clenched at blankets in pain. He didn't believe it.

Then everything went silent, outside and inside the room, the tension stifling and unpredictably heated; he detected footsteps, fast, uncertain, all culminating as he heard someone's breath hitch.

"No, no, not you, not you. Roy, fuck...You fucking murderer! You fucking killed him! You killed Al-" Then a muffled scream, and shuffling, and whispered voices laced with deadly threats. Fuery laid the phone on the bedside table without another utterance, nodding frankly at Jean and reaching for his gun. The holster was empty. The phone buzzed with the woman's voice, repetitions of "Hello?" and computer-like concerns. Then the line, too, went dead. Jean heard Frank Archer speak in a seductively low whisper, heard the kid whimpering, heard Roy threatening to kill them both. Archer said Ed was beautiful; and he was, Jean acknowledged, and almost devastatingly so.

But.

"Help me up. Get my clothes." He growled low. Ha! The devil could have him, he'd die again after all. "I'm in the mood to kill."

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Roy felt the vein in his forehead twitch, his fingers perspiring and making the transmutation circle on his hand smudge into deeper lines. It would still work, change the oxygen density in the air, heat up the place like an oven before he took it all back and watched the whole place burn to the ground. He was a ticking bomb and Ed would be the only sacrifice. No one else mattered; not to him, anyway. And if killing the kid was what it took to fly away, then he was perfectly prepared to bury him in ashes.

"Oh, Colonel," Archer murmured, running his cool lips along the teen's neck, feeling his throat constrict, his every vibrating whimper. He was one of those people that were often touched, but never quite got used to the feeling; Frank could tell. He certainly hadn't gotten past the discomfort, but was old enough and experienced enough to know how to close himself off, relax and tense up when the moment required it so the least sensation possible was experienced. Well, it wasn't Edward he was trying to hurt anyway; his goal was mind-fucking, and Roy Mustang had slept around quite a lot as far as mind-fucking was concerned. This was just the big breakdown, the climax. "You're not counting."

Roy said nothing, just glaring and clamping his jaw extra tight. He was cold. So, so cold. He needed heat. Needed to see sparks fly, needed to see the flash of fire in gold eyes before they faded, disappeared. It would be quick. Maybe even painless. Certainly not as excruciating as what he'd planned; dumping the kid in the river to drown, throwing himself in after.

Archer knew that above anything else, Roy hated seeing people touch his things. Ed had become one of those things. A prized possession, something to be protected; unusual, yes. Illegal, yes. But that made it all the more satisfying. Roy was holding on to the one thing that had kept him sane on the battlefield and through Maes Hughes' death. Ed had helped him through it as any other brat would have, scared and confused and guilt-ridden. Unknowingly he had sealed the deal and let Mustang transcend temptation. Ed wasn't just attractive, it wasn't just about control, it wasn't even about sex or pleasure - it was about reaching for all of the light you could find in a dark world, stealing what was left for yourself.

"So you're just going to stand there?" Archer asked playfully, one eyebrow shooting up. Edward tried, desperately, to remember alchemy, an art he hadn't exactly forgotten in the first place. But why the fuck should he even try? That was the cost of his body, not temporary but a permanent toll. "You know I could fuck him right here and now, and you probably wouldn't do a thing but stand there and watch." A small uneasy shudder went through the room, many angry pairs of eyes watching helplessly.

Probably. "Four." Roy muttered dryly, noting that the teen's eyes were open but staring far off over the man's shoulder. Did he really have the strength to kill him, so swiftly, so suddenly? He couldn't do it the other night in the car, what the hell had changed? His desperation? The phone number in the notebook? His imminent execution? When the hell would the grave being dug finally hit the bedrock? "I'm warning you."

"So be it."

"You don't want to die. It's written on your face."

"No, but I know something about you that you don't. You wouldn't hurt him. Not if you could help it."

"Two." Roy knew he was right, but that didn't stop him from shakily pressing his fingers to the transmutation circle again. It glowed bright, briefly, and everyone besides him and Archer winced back into the walls, detecting the odd ambiance of alchemical charge. They feared it because they couldn't understand it. That was how the world worked, no? "Give him to me."

"Work for it."

Ah, well - the world was hell, anyway.

"One." Power surged through him, hot and fast, his eyes narrowing into cold slits, a wall of flame breaching the air in a bright blinding flash. Warmth. Warmth at last. He heard screams, and several of them, and a loud sound like a crash, chunks of rubble and ceiling and wall and dry chalky dust and ash and smoke falling, his vision clouded by a heavy black billowing cloud. Glass shattered and the lights flickered before dying in an electric, fizzling pulse. He caught the sight of dark hair, and the flash of glasses, through the haze, but before he could grasp at the familiar shoulder he was knocked to the ground by a piece of wall that had cracked in the explosion.

His head started to bleed, thick globs of blood sliding down the black strands of hair caressing his forehead, dim pupils flaring as he tried to make out the form of bodies. He had been careful; oh, so careful, but couldn't remember - couldn't remember if he had actually done alchemy at all! Couldn't tell who was dead, couldn't tell who was alive, couldn't tell if he himself would make it. He had avoided Ed, or tried to anyway, but couldn't find his silhouette in the red-tinged and glowing smoke stream that clogged his lungs and made it impossible to breathe.

Edward started coughing somewhere up ahead, and immediately Roy breathed in relief, though it didn't last long; he twisted around until he was lying on his back, the blood running down his face and into his nostrils, his mouth, until copper was all he could see or taste or smell.

He passed out.

Frank looked about the area, keeping close to the floor and crawling - the kid had gotten away, scampering toward the wall and sitting against it with his shirt pulled up over his nose and mouth to keep from breathing in the carbon air. Someone had knocked into Archer, on purpose, right onto the floor. They were a tangle of limbs, trying to find each other blindly, each full of rage and ill remorse. He caught sight of the face of the man he was struggling against, and realized with a smirk that it was indeed Kain Fuery - though his face was dusted with ash and his glasses were shattered and broken in all the wrong places.

"Colonel, you sick motherfu-"

He reached for the needle, next to his ankle, and before Kain could see what was happening through his sooty lenses, the sharp spike was driven deep into his shoulder. He gasped loudly as the syringe was emptied, the poison shooting through his veins before he could so much as protest. Archer amused himself, listening to the choked breathing, the last opening and closing of his mouth, the weak attempts to throw a punch, the still and lethargic movements as the man slowly sunk down to the floor and collapsed there, eyes open, eyes cold, eyes dead.

Edward watched with a slow expression, his own eyes glazed over in shock; his body was trembling, badly, and yet it took him all of about five seconds to understand the truth. He was surrounded by death. He was surrounded by death. Death, death, death. Fuck. Why? Why had it come to this? He couldn't stop screaming, didn't even know what he was screaming about, but knew that he must have been doing something to attract attention or else Archer wouldn't have come over to him in the black smoke, a wicked grin on his face, and slapped him hard. The man's strong hands took hold of his hair, the teen defensively reaching up to stop him, before yanking him cruelly off the ground. "No! No, stop! Let me go!"

Archer hit him again, this time with more force, more anger. "You keep your fucking mouth shut, do you hear me?"

Looking back, Ed could see nothing but smoke, and charred, darkened bodies with blood standing out like a thousand open veins; eye sockets burned away and melted mouths open in a silent scream, the alien forms reawakening his nightmares, an artist's playground for inspiration as no face looked even remotely human - abstract and undefined, hairless, dry, and black with fire.

And for some godforsaken reason, he couldn't cry.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hawkeye smashed the cigarette under foot, breathing out the last of the smoke, when an explosion rang out into the cold evening air like an atomic bomb. A slight breeze stirred her hair, the noise reverberating, echoing, around the night. Her crimson eyes widened.

The sirens came soon after, wailing like the mournful cries of the dead.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jean coughed and spluttered, holding his t-shirt over his mouth to prevent much of the grit from getting inside his already weakened lungs. Maybe Hawkeye had been right - maybe smoking was going to be the death of him. "Fuery?" He called out into the silently flaming, smoking remnants of the explosion. Alarms were going off, piercing the air ominously, and - fuck... "Fuery!?"

The glass in the door had broken in the explosion - Roy must have tried killing the kid after all. His veins froze over in panic, the shock of the blast slowly ceasing into a dull tremble, his eyes roaming over the destruction as his heart doubled its beats.

Everyone - everyone was dead.

At least a dozen of them, all unable to be identified, fire licking at the remains of their bodies like a child would some delicious treat. The lights had died, the plastic shell melting and dripping down into the heated flames, orange and black swimming on the wall as a source of deadly light to see by. The walls had crumbled, exposing a charred skeleton of rooms and more bodies, melted medical equipment, wailing and screaming robots and the damned living who hadn't succumbed to injury.

"Fuery!" He called out again, his voice merging darkly against the chaos and roaring flame. Roy actually did it. Roy actually killed them! He fucking... "Edward, Fuery, fuck, answer me!" He stopped cold, finding a pair of bent wire glasses shattered on what was left of linoleum flooring. He stooped down to pick them up, but jumped back when he found they were hot as iron. He said nothing, eyes roaming up and around the space, until he found a familiar lump, and stopped breathing.

He ran forward, collapsing to his knees in front of the slumped figure. The military uniform was stained charcoal gray, a fine layer of dust and soot covering his hair, skin, and open eyes. Open eyes. Dead, cold. Jean felt his own eyes soaking up with tears, but bit down on his lip to keep from crying out, and reached for the man's shoulder. He tried moving him, and found that his limbs had gone stiff, the life entirely absent from him. Kain Fuery was...

No. He turned back to look at the damage, tugging Fuery into a tight embrace, ignoring the cool tear that ran sluggishly down his face. "Edward?" There was no sign of the blond. Even through the smoke screen, Jean found that despite the irregularities of the corpses, they were all - too tall - to be the teenager. He couldn't bear the thought of the kid if he was wrong. Couldn't bear to think that his goddamn beautiful eyes would never light up again, however rarely. He cursed. "Ed?"

He heard low grumbling, and through the smoke, could see a figure rising from the ashes. The man coughed, crawling forward on his hands and knees, more behemoth than human being as his head ducked low. Havoc watched passively, mind whirring as he tried to think of a way to carry Fuery's body away from the rubble, though all of the exits were covered in a wall of smoke. The heat was becoming unbearable, thick sweat matting his hair and skin.

He winced backward, eyes narrowing to crescents, as he identified Roy's trembling body, blood running down his head and coating his face in a sticky crimson. "Get the fuck away you bastard!" He screamed, kicking out in fear and rage and lost sanity. His body was in defensive mode, completely ignorant of anything but survival and petty instinct. "You fucking crazy bastard! Look what you've done!"

Roy ignored the shouts, knowing Jean was weak, knowing by the blood seeping into his cotton t-shirt. His wound had reopened. His own chest pained him terribly, but for some reason any and all connection to pain had been shut off. He shakily pushed himself against the wall alongside Jean, and took heavy breaths as though he had run a marathon. He spit out a dark glob of blood. "He took the kid." He managed to mutter, opal eyes grazing the ceiling black with fire.

"Of course - of course that's all that matters. What the fuck is wrong with you?! These are innocent people-"

"No one is innocent, you son of a bitch! No one! Everyone in this fucking world is dead already, do you understand that?"

"Where's Ed?"

"I told you, Archer took him!"

Jean let off a chain of expletives, and then awkwardly forced Fuery's dead arm around his neck. He stood up, groaning as the weight fell heavily on his back, unable to breathe. Kain dangled on his back, little more than an obstacle, but Jean wasn't going to leave him. "I was planning on killing you, but I think burning in hell suits you." He marched forward, avoiding bodies and rubble and flame. He could make out the glowing red lettering up ahead, the word EXIT screaming into his overheated pores. The fire alarm kept crying out like a mad banshee, a scream in itself that echoed deathly around the hospital.

Roy struggled to take breaths, watching as Jean's figure slowly disappeared into smoke, and then shouted, "Wait!" He struggled to his feet, gripping the wall for support, noticing the blond's pace increasing. He limped forward, blinded by blood, blinded by Edward's fate; Frank had kidnapped him, and if all indicators were correct, then he knew that Frank wasn't just going to rape him and let him go. He would kill him. "I'm coming with you."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A thick, monstrous black cloud billowed from the hospital building, casting a shadow over the bloody twilight atmosphere. Helicopters dotted the skyline, the blades stirring and sending a powerful wind about the ground, scattering dead leaves and debris. Sirens were permeating the sour air, belonging to firetrucks with great red flashing lights, police vehicles, the bomb squad. The military was on its way, the whole incident reeking of a terrorist attack or worse.

Riza had fallen back, away from under the awning where ambulances pulled in and into the parking lot that was slowly filling up with evacuees and emergency vehicles. Her cell phone was pressed against her ear, her heart competing in some kind of marathon, every ticking second and every lone sound of dial tone serving to panic her even more.

"Come on, you son of a bitch, pick up the damn-" She stopped, realizing that Jean didn't have his cell phone with him. She'd put it in his car. Fuck. Miserably she jammed her thumb into the off button and slid the cell into her pocket, then scanned the frantic, chaotic crowd for a familiar blond head. No sign of Edward, no sign of Jean. And still, there was absolutely no one who could tell her what in God's name was going on.

With that in mind, she briskly went toward a young looking paramedic who was pushing a stretcher with an elderly man on it; the man was unconscious, breathing through the use of portable machines. "What the hell is going on?"

He shot her an annoyed but fearful glance, and then said rapidly, "Don't know, babe, it's a code green stat and we've got ten minutes to get these people out of here." He threw a look over his shoulder, and while he shouted out to his partner, Hawkeye examined him a little more thoroughly; early twenties, dark skinned, and trembling. Something was seriously wrong.

"Code green?" She repeated numbly, blinking as she tried to remember hospital protocol. A breathy gasp escaped her: code green, internal emergency, mass evacuation. She remembered the violent explosion that had rocked the earth, the sound of windows shattering. "Shit-"

The noise of the crowd jolted her, a wall of people congealing around her in one rioting, loud mass. A steady stream of evacuating patients left the building, some walking if they could, some on stretchers, but all with the same expression of confusion; a haunting melody drifted about, an echo of destruction among chaos. Many bystanders had shown up in their cars, watching with completely engrossed, innocent eyes, the pillar of flame evil but unable to be torn away from. These bystanders said nothing for the most part, and there was a large flock more of them on the highway, gaping mouths open wide as they entertained themselves in fire.

Traffic slowed until it came to a complete halt, housewives chattering into their cell phones with kids in the backseat, on and on about the unbelievable thing she had seen driving home from work. Just a spectacle; just a show. A perfect distraction.

She felt tears start to burn into her eyes, her hand pressed against her forehead as she digested the scene - the fifth floor - when she heard a familiar scream that no one else cared to note.

"Stop! Let me go! No!"

Heat started deep in her heart and extended outward; Edward.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as planned, just as planned. Archer knew that the kid would kick and scream and cry, but all it took was a good slap to shut him up for a few seconds. They had taken the back stairwell, and it had been empty, filled only with the glow of artificial light, before a bloody crowd of evacuees stampeded through. They ignored him and ignored Ed, and the boy suddenly realized, in one sweet, sweet moment, that no one was going to notice he had disappeared until it was far too late.

They managed to exit the building through a side door, and Ed watched longingly with tear stained eyes the crowd that had gathered, biting their nails and staring obliviously at the tower of flame. Archer had a tight grip on his forearm, tight enough to bruise, and the man had made it a point dig his sharp nails into his skin if the moment required it. He whispered sweet nothings, telling him in detail, literary detail, how he was going to fuck him, beat him, mutilate him...

Edward couldn't think; the death, the corpses, his own imminent demise seemed foreign and unreal. He knew he was in shock, though the thought only flitted briefly in his mind before he cast it out, deciding to give up entirely and sacrifice himself, ending the story and ending the Elrics for good. He was heartened, almost, that he and his brother might share the same fate-

Almost, until he saw Hawkeye, and he felt a small glimmer of hope.

He opened his mouth to scream, a car pulling up next to the curb he and Archer resided on, when the dark haired man reached forward and opened the car door and with his other hand took him cruelly by the hair. Ed let out a shriek of pain, digging his heels into the pavement to keep from being taken too easily; he felt that if he stalled long enough, did whatever it took, he might survive. He struggled against him hard, weary that he was far weaker, kicking and hitting with his powerless fists.

"Hold still, you stupid little bitch!"

Frank slipped out of the guise of control, and took him tightly by the wrists, a thudding dark anger crossing his face. Ed stared up at him with shaking eyes, lips parted fearfully and breathing coming in short, desperate, whimpering gasps. Without a second thought, only wanting to see him scream, egged on by the impatient honking by the driver in the front seat of the fuming car, Archer jerked the boy's body violently so that his blond head hit the frame. The teen's scream caught in his throat, his eyes falling shut and his body sinking into limp unconsciousness.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"

He was startled by the voice, coming from the direction of the crowd. He caught Riza's face, dark and threatening, her eyes wild, her small hands pushing through the crowd with more strength than she looked capable of mustering. He cursed low, carefully cradling the lethargic teen's body and placing it in the backseat of the car. He nodded towards the man in the front seat, and a red pair of eyes blinked before the driver tossed him a weapon.

Archer knew to make it quick; no witnesses. The handgun felt heavy and lovely in his hands.

But the man in the front stopped him, speaking very calmly, very calculatedly. "No." He muttered. "Take her, too."

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Ha! I FAIL! YAY ME!!!

No flames please. :(


	23. Numbers

_The end is the same as the beginning. _-Unknown

**IMPORTANT: I did something freakishly stupid when I uploaded this. I removed my Author's Note and therefore realized that none of you could review this chapter if you'd reviewed 23 already (which is now 22). So please - if you're writing a review for this chapter, make it Anonymous and just put in your regular pen name. Thanks so much and sorry for the confusion!!! I fail =D**

* * *

Jean cried hard. He buckled under the weight of Fuery's body, heavy and slowly stiffening, as he tried to escape the smoke and the weakening structure of the building. The stairwell was empty. It spiraled downward, spinning strangely in his blurry vision, long and without an end. The first step was the hardest.

The second step came more easily. The third, barely a task at all. He shifted Fuery's body, and then coughed, his lungs stretched to capacity and drying into ash through the violent hellfire air. He cursed as the dark haired man's body started falling from his shoulders, hardened into a weight he couldn't bear; stifling a small, indistinguishable cry, he let him fall to the floor (_snap_) and stepped hard on his arm.

He broke the bone, broke the flesh, bent it at an odd angle, did the same to the other limbs. There was nothing in his stomach to throw up, so he didn't.

He looked back to find Roy limping behind, his lip curled into a furious snarl and a dangerous, possessive blood lust in his eyes so powerful that Jean trembled in its wake. Inside of him, another devil began to stir, spurred on by the phantom touch of Edward's small body beside his, and the terrified screaming that had resonated from his throat as sin swallowed him whole.

* * *

Traffic had slowed to a standstill, all of Central addicted to the chaos of pain. Millions of eyes stared at screens, jaws open, one voice after another making claims about having seen a patient or a doctor jump out of a window to escape the flames. The driver of a small white Toyota with drying mud on the stained underbelly smoked a cigar from cracked lips, half of his face obscured by the dark edge of his ball cap.

Riza sat beside him, examining every movement, searching his clothes, his expression, his body language, to gauge any chance of getting out of the situation alive. There was a lump in his khakis that might have been a gun, and a pocketknife dangled like a shark tooth from a rawhide string around his neck. She stole a glance in the rear view mirror, shifting her bound wrists slightly behind her.

Edward was still unconscious, laying across the backseat with his head in Archer's lap. His wrists were tied with coarse tape, and his mouth was covered by the same material. The man smirked at her, finding her eyes in the mirror, and pressed the gun in his hand more firmly against the boy's temple. "Fuck with me again, bitch." He warned her, glaring through a thick, purple blue eyelid. His hand was decorated with painful blood red marks from Hawkeye's strong teeth. She'd fought harder than the kid, and had almost won.

"Get your hands off of him." She snapped. The man beside her grinned, letting his foot slide off the gas pedal as they reached a traffic light. He slapped her hard - so hard the world shattered for a little less than a second, her head smacking against the windshield as blood exploded from cracked teeth. The windows were tinted to dark extremes, passerby unaware of the hit.

"Chill." Archer said with a highly amused smirk. He ran his cold fingers through the teen's hair, watching as the fair strands slipped between them like water or silk. Edward's head felt absolutely wonderful resting where it did; sometimes he moved a bit, shock waves of warmth filling Frank's every nerve and making him hard. "I don't mind if she protests a bit."

"Bitch talks too much." The man in the front said, stepping back on the gas, the car shifting into motion. Every mile took them further away from the fuzz. "I've always said that if God existed, women would be born mute." He licked his lips a bit, shifty eyes roaming over Hawkeye's body. She dared him to try making a move. She'd snap his head clean off his neck.

Archer laughed, staring at Ed as though in a trance. "Keep that in mind for later. Wouldn't want to ruin your fun."

"Oh, you won't."

* * *

Air had never tasted so sweet.

Roy burst from the burning, choking smoke of the hospital and into the tranquil glow of twilight. Havoc was nowhere to be found - he had lost him somewhere along in the darkness. He concentrated on heartbeat, but heartbeat reminded him that he was alive, and that very soon, Edward might not be.

Concentrate. Think.

It was then that he noticed the sirens, the helicopters dotting the sky, fire trucks and police cars and the whole fucking SWAT team in commission. What? All of this, just because he had killed a few useless, worthless, insignificant white doctors? Really?

Never mind.

Act on impulse.

"Get the fuck out of the car!" He heard himself shouting, rushing up to a slow moving vehicle with an elderly man in the front seat. He thrust the door open, unaffected by the terrified expression of the man within, and ripped him from his seat and onto the pavement. One passenger. Shitty car. It was the least and most he could do. "Thanks."

* * *

Frank grew tired of the waiting game. "How far are we?" He asked, looking at the travel pamphlets and city maps strewn about the floor of the car. Riza followed his gaze, examining one of the pamphlets with sudden realization. The hospital layout, with two different rooms circled in dark blue pen. One was Ed's, and the other's was Mustang's.

"Five miles."

Archer sighed resignedly, setting the gun down on the leather seat beside the teen's head. Riza varied the position of her wrists, forming a tired, panicked plan. She could cut through the tape with her acrylics, knock the driver out, and dive for the gun. She knew that the plan was easier to conceive than actually execute, but saving Ed was all that mattered. "Guess that means I can have some fun, doesn't it?" Frank asked with a dry smirk.

Riza cursed him with a look that could petrify the devil, but said nothing. Helplessness poisoned every drop of hope she still held in her body as the man slid his rough hands all over Edward's unconscious form, the teen unmoving but emanating quiet whimpers of discontent. She forced herself to look away, retreating into the darkness of pleasant memory, trying to find the motivation to do what she needed to do.

Somehow, she could find no encouragement there; Roy's dark, murderous, intense eyes peered out of the nightmare, his fingers caressing her skin, but his lips forming another name. She choked a bit on the sweet, heady scented air, thinking of the fire at the hospital and the kidnapping and the strange circumstances surrounding coincidence. It all fit together too perfectly to have been an accident; the fire, she understood, had been a distraction. In the chaos, no one noticed them being forced into the car.

But if Roy started the fire, and Roy had nothing to do with the abduction, then what did that mean?

She blinked, broken away from thought as a quiet, gut wrenching sob penetrated her ears. She looked in the rear view mirror, breath hitching as she saw the silver lucid tears tracking down Edward's face.

* * *

"Damn it!" Martin Creme yelled, running his old hand through graying hair. Traffic was going at a snail's pace. His phone kept ringing, on and off, in his pocket but the mountain of foul smoke rising to the top of Central's skyline was hard to look away from. The military was putting it down as a terrorist attack, but he knew better - who else but Roy Mustang had the power of flame at his command? "Penny, check the radio."

Ms. Dale, driving the car with glazed over eyes, nodded once and turned the dial up. Static came through at first, followed by the high pitched whine of AM feedback. Finally a voice, disconnectedly speaking, came from the crappy 1992 speaker system.

_"Authorities have issued a nationwide code orange terrorist threat level, saying Amestris is at high risk for continued violent activity...so far twenty-two deaths have been confirmed as well as over sixty non lethal injuries due to smoke inhalation..." _

Martin ran his hand over his face. "Twenty-two deaths." He whispered. "Twenty-two..."

_"...It is unclear whether the three soldiers being kept at the medical center are among the dead, though investigation is pending into their involvement with the attack..." _

"They're talking about Edward, aren't they?" Penny asked in a small voice, swallowing a hard lump that had developed in her throat. None of the news stations were aware of the circumstances surrounding Edward's hospitalization, and the same went for Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Havoc. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, they had been injured in the line of duty, though internal affairs had originally been sorting heavily through age of consent laws and all kinds of bullshit.

"I don't like this. Roy, Ed, and Jean were all staying in separate corridors to prevent complications. They can't have just disappeared. As for involvement, well - we both know Mustang had to have something to do with it." He took out his cell phone, dialed a quick number, and waited earnestly as it rang and rang and rang. Finally, a barely audible greeting was heard over the fuzz, and there was the distinct sound of sirens in the background. "Dan, this is Martin. Are you at St. Lito's?"

"Yeah..." The voice said shakily, "This is crazy. Why do they suspect a bomb threat? I don't understand it. The police and the feds are both getting involved..."

"I called the squad captain twenty minutes ago. He said that they're using the bomb threat to keep people off the streets. They actually think that a State Alchemist was involved - air particles were too pure to be anything but a transmutation. They only found that out because the Fuhrer himself ordered ten special ops forensic alchemists to the heart of the building."

"So that's what it is. One of the special ops is dead, his air tank ran out. So they think this State Alchemist is on the run?"

"Yeah. Roy Mustang - the Flame Alchemist. Ring any bells?"

"I've heard stories." Dan murmured, another flicker of static breathed into the mouthpiece. A helicopter whirred loudly in the background, a fire truck's roar deafening the twilight, and Dan began to shout to make himself heard. "Even if the media's had a gag order issued, everyone in any government position's heard. He raped that kid, didn't he? Edward Elric? The detective from our branch?"

"Yes," Martin replied, shooting a glance at Penny. They had both reached the same conclusion about that, as well. Ms. Dale was a smart girl. "Since no bodies have been found, we think he might have taken Edward Elric and is now on the run. He's dangerous. That's why the bomb threat is so important. We can't have civilians placed in danger just because a murderous State Alchemist is on the loose. Not to mention how much trust the military would lose if they found out that's the real reason the terrorist threat level's been raised to orange."

"Treason."

"No, not treason. Just obsession."

Penny cleared her throat. "Sir, this raises the question on whether or not Roy Mustang is in fact the-"

"I know it does," Martin said under his breath, cutting her off. "I know it does. But if Roy took Edward, and Havoc's disappeared as well, then maybe they took him together. Partners in the perfect crime."

"That's impossible, sir." Dan interrupted confidently.

"Why's that?"

"Because, sir - Jean Havoc's right here. He passed out after he carried the body of Sergent Fuery from the fifth floor."

Martin's eyes widened. "Fuery's dead?"

"Yes, sir. Though - this is going to sound nuts - he was killed by a needle full of the shit they use for death row inmates. Where in the world would Roy or Havoc have gotten that kind of drug, and managed to sneak it past investigators and the doctors themselves?"

Creme thought for a moment, peering absentmindedly at the pillar of smoke. The devil's face kept appearing and disappearing in the billowing clouds of ash. "Maybe they didn't."

* * *

Roy kept his eyes peeled like a bitter onion. He counted the cars in front of him, in back of him. Seventy-three. He tapped his foot on the gas pedal. Wanted to rev the engine, but the traffic light was stopping him with an angry red glare. Edward could be anywhere, and what was stopping him was his own fucking mess.

He looked back at the fire in the rear mirror, now little more than a hot, strange blur in the background. Darkness appeared behind it like a stormy front, but it was actually the rearing of night's cruel head; he panicked, blood boiling and freezing all at once in a painful steam, realizing that by the fall of shadow Edward's fate might be out of his hands forever.

He clenched the steering wheel more tightly. Tears burned in his eyes behind the hot lids, tears that he tried to hold back but which slid freely down his tired, haggard facial features. It was just starting to hit him how many lives he had ruined. How many lives he had just...taken away, like he was a god, or the devil, and had the right to take such things. How many of those people were mothers, fathers? How many children would lay in their beds tonight crying their eyes out for a parent that was little more than a skeletal corpse at this point?

He was horrified. Sickened. Without thinking, he jerked the car to a stop, the vehicle behind him honking in hard disapproval, and vomited all over the seat. It smelled bitter and dark and evil, but he felt that suited him. He was bitter and dark and evil, too.

He started praying, bloodshot eyes on the car in front of him. The vehicle inched forward slowly. He prayed that the families of those dead would be all right. He wished that the ghosts would go to peace. He hoped Havoc - damn it, Jean Havoc himself - made it out of the building, because he really was, really had been, his best friend at one point in time before sin had infected him, festering the wound in his open bleeding heart.

More than anything, he prayed for Edward.

He thought for a moment or two. He couldn't find Ed in a traffic jam. He couldn't find Ed by praying to a nonexistent God. Frank Archer had slipped him a notebook and a piece of paper and a pen. He had never thought about it until now, but it was becoming painfully clear that Archer had planned this all in advance; Archer had _known _he would escape using alchemy, Archer had _known _he would try kidnapping Ed, and Archer had _known _that if given the choice, he'd kill innocent people to save the kid.

How could he have been such a fool?

He let out a quick, dry sob, too weak to cry and too strong to cry. He pulled the wrinkled, crumpled piece of notebook paper from his pocket, and stared at the numbers scrawled in blue ink pen. A phone number. So many numbers. Numbers had ruined his life. He looked around the car earnestly, sighing when he found a gaudy, ancient cell phone as big as his forearm. He dialed the number slowly and with trembling fingers, sinking low in his seat.

There was an answer almost immediately, and he cringed upon hearing the voice. "May I ask who's calling?"

Roy's stomach dropped through his intestines and out his ass. "Charlie." He murmured low, confusion building to a crescendo before dying in a finale of heartbreak and realization. "Where's Edward?"

"Oh - him." The man said, completely unconcerned. He sighed, "Right here, actually. He's fine. Alive and well and kicking and screaming, but not for long, I assure you."

That couldn't be. Why would Charlie take Ed? Charlie had - he would have said helped. But Charlie had never helped. Never done anything but feed him drugs, feed him illusions of power, talk him into beating and raping and hurting Edward every second of every day. "What are you doing?" Roy managed to ask in a cracked, worried tone. He sat back further in the seat, closing his eyes as his memories played automatically.

_I have all the numbers. _

_Don't be afraid to fuck the little bitch into the ground. _

_I know just the way to help you. _

_God sent me to help out. _

"Giving you what you want, Mustang..." Charlie said quietly. Roy's breathing quickened until he was panting, hearing muffled cries in the background, and Archer's gravelly low moans. The man was calling him things - a dirty little slut and a whore. Sickness started bubbling in Roy's throat again, rising like the salty tide. "You wanted release, I gave you release. You wanted Ed to bend to your every will, he did. You wanted to kill him - I'll kill him, make no mistake." He laughed a dry, smoky laugh.

"Please don't hurt him." Roy found himself asking. Please. When had he ever used the word please? When had he ever begged someone for anything? "Don't touch him. Just let him go." If there was one thing he knew, it was that his words never worked the way he wanted them to.

"Pathetic. I was hoping to play a little game with you, but you've resorted to pleading like some damned child." Charlie paused, and Roy imagined he was blowing out smoke from some kind of cigarette.

"What do you want from me? Why is Archer with you? Why did you help me escape from the hospital?"

"I don't like answering questions much. I've always said that if there's something you need to know that you can't figure out for yourself, you don't deserve to know it."

"Tell me what you want." Roy said desperately, fists clenching. The car inched forward a bit more, traffic slowly thinning out. The moon smiled in a crescent shape, mocking him.

"You're going to do exactly as I ask. You're going to follow my instructions carefully. If you fail, I might have to punish the child, and it'll be painful. Oh - I've got your little doll Riza Hawkeye here as well. Say hello, lieutenant." There was nothing but a muffled shriek of pain, followed by Ed's own choked off cries of protest.

"Stop." Roy's forehead began to feel sticky and warm, coated in sweat. His body was trembling hard, thoughts spinning like a merry go round of doom. There was no way out of this. Ed and Riza were completely at the bastards' mercy. The cell phone started to buzz against his ear, and he took it away quietly, examining the pop up on the screen.

**You Have (1) New Text Messages!  
**

His brow furrowed, and reluctantly, he opened the message. He blinked. Shook. Tried not to breathe. It was a picture, fuzzy because the camera on the phone wasn't in great shape, but despite the graininess he could see it clearly. Edward's eyes were shut tight, his left arm pinned to the back seat, Archer's pale tongue licking slowly up his face. What bothered him most - for reasons he couldn't pin down - was the long strip of duct tape on the kid's mouth to keep him silent.

Then he noticed the gun pressed hard againt Ed's temple, and cringed. "Okay." He whispered gently. "I'll help you."

* * *

Havoc sat by an ambulance in the cold dank of the night, voice hoarse from screaming and the fire. He was breathing into a mask, tears streaming down his face, shivering into the brown wool blanket that had been pushed onto his shoulders by a medical attendant.

Sixty bodies lined the parking lot, kept from civilians and observers by a wall of police tape that wound around. One of them was Kain Fuery, eyes glassy and dead, underneath a virgin white sheet. He was protected. He was safe. He couldn't be hurt anymore. He was sleeping with the wind blowing through his dark hair.

Martin Creme approached him, sitting down on the curb. The air had the scent of smoke and death and gas fumes. The firefighters had managed to put out most of the fire, but had left behind the skeletal remains of the fifth floor; all things taken into account, most of the top floors were gutted. "Coffee?" The man asked, offering him a steaming Styrofoam cup.

Havoc shook his head, water blue eyes staring ahead. He removed the mask, sniffling a bit, and said, "Hurt my throat."

"Right." Martin looked sadly away, putting the coffee down on the sidewalk. Ambulances and extra cars and vehicles crowded the parking lot of the hospital, taking patients to the nearest medical center on the other side of the city. Everyone was being transferred. "I'm sorry. I didn't think about that."

Jean nodded. "Have they issued an Amber Alert at all?"

"For Edward?"

"Yeah."

"No." Martin admitted with a frown. General Grumman was heading media policies at the moment, and he had a strict gag order on anything having to do with Edward Elric. He had made it quite clear that no one besides the authorities were to know about the possible abduction. He didn't want to voice it to Havoc, but he suspected that they weren't keen on finding Edward alive at all. "I'll try to talk some sense into them. Then again, with a terrorist threat, it's unlikely that any civilians would be able to help out finding him anyway. Too dangerous."

He trailed off into silence. The clouds were dark in the sky above them, and everyone was expecting snow. The air was frigid and cold, sinking into flesh, freezing it into false warmth and fatigue. "I have to find him." Havoc muttered, his tone taking on an air of weakness. He bit back a sob, "I have to find him...no one else will..."

"Just relax." Martin soothed. "He's a tough kid. He can take care of himself."

Jean put his hand over his eyes, nodding his head, over and over. He was successful in hiding the tears, but not the sound of his quiet crying. Edward had been in his arms, just the other day. They had played cards the other day. They had laughed. They had cried. "I don't know what to do."

Creme bit down on his lip, unaccustomed to comfort but understanding why Jean needed it. Ed had an odd way of attracting love; attracting people to care for him, but so blissfully unaware of those people himself. "We'll find him. Mustang can't go far. We're setting up road blocks on all the bridges, at all the major checkpoints."

Havoc laughed bitterly. He hadn't told them yet, that it was Archer that had kidnapped him, not Roy - but either way, it didn't matter. With his luck Roy would find the kid first, and they'd be in the same goddamn situation. "That's not how it happened. Frank Ar-"

Martin's cell phone began to ring. He held his finger up for silence, apologizing quietly, and then answered. Havoc watched him for a moment, alarm spreading like a tingle all through his gut as he saw the man's face go even paler. "Where are you?" He said darkly.

Jean's breath caught in his throat. "Who is it?"

Martin shook his head. "I don't understand."

"What's there to understand?" Roy asked, a definite hint of panting sadism in his tone. He chuckled low. "You heard me. I have a lot of connections, bastard. Either you tell the media to run the story or I'll cut the kid's fucking throat. I'll bet his blood tastes just as good as he does."

Jean heard the words like a whisper in the dark, and his eyes went wide. "What did he say?" Fiery rage built up like a hurricane in his panic. He leaped forward to grab the phone from Martin's hand, but the gray haired man turned away, holding him back with one strong arm. The brown blanket fell onto the pavement.

"Where is Edward, Mustang?"

"Sitting next to me. Just fucked him until he passed out...whiny little bitch can't take all of me, it seems," He laughed again, the insinuation making Jean's blood boil. "Come on, Havoc. Don't be jealous. You had your turn with him, and now you want more?"

Jean's eyes narrowed. "Prove it. Prove that you have him, prove that he's still ali-"

**You Have (1) New Text Messages!**

"Oh, fuck..." Jean cursed. The picture was dark but the image was clear; Edward alone and leaning against the seat, blood flowing from a cut lip. He thought he heard Roy's breathing hitch a bit, but perhaps it was just imagination.

"They'll get worse." Roy growled. "If you don't do exactly as I say."

Jean didn't understand. What was going on? How did Roy get his hands on Ed? "Where's Archer?"

Roy was silent for a moment or two. "Killed him." He said faintly. "Dumped him in a ravine. You'll never find him."

"You miserable fuck...you tricked me-"

"Yes, I did trick you. I won't lie when I say I enjoyed killing him. The ravine I dumped him at - you know where it is. By the old road where we used to smoke. Where we shot each other." Roy's smirk could practically be heard through the static. Something between a breath and a sob escaped him. "You'll never find him unless you're looking in the right place. Understand?"

Martin's face was slowly turning a mottled purple. He gripped the phone tightly in white fingers, and whispered, "If you hurt that kid, I'll end you. I hope you can swallow that pill, because when I get pissed, I get pissed."

"That makes two of us." Roy agreed. Seconds passed in contemplative quiet, Jean on edge and thinking about the oddly cryptic and irrelevant use of language he had just heard come out of Roy's mouth, and then the picture sent via text message. "Television, newspapers, radio, I want it all on the alert. I want every man, woman, and child to understand what's going on here. Today's tragedy was just the beginning of a series of tragedies. And in case you were having second thoughts," He paused, seeming to hesitate, "Something to remember...remember me by."

Another pop up appeared on the screen, followed by another picture, shaded in all the right places, one haunting pair of gold eyes staring fearfully out of the screen.

* * *

Roy hung up the phone, sighing heavily and leaning back into the seat. He dialed Charlie's number again, and said shakily, "I did what you told me to...please don't hurt him..."

"I won't. You've done very well. Do you understand why I had you do that?"

Roy swallowed. "I understand. But what am I supposed to do, now that they'll be coming after me and you and Archer are off the hook?"

"I'm going to give you an address, and you're going to go to that address. You will remain there until further instruction is given."

"How do I know you won't kill him?"

"I promise you this: before this is over, you'll see him again, and his heart _will_ be beating."

"What about Riza?"

There was a sick, sweet, sinful pause, before Charlie chuckled and hung up.

* * *


	24. Carnal

**WARNING: Sadistic violence, gore, rape, and character death. Except, since it's written by me, it'll all be pretty lame anyway. Please read at your own discretion. If you roll your eyes at it or go 'wtf ever' or something, then go ahead and stop reading. I'm a sick SOB. Keep in mind that Edo's still in shock, so I couldn't make him as kick ass and awesome as I wanted. Think about what all he's been through and see if you wouldn't be crumbling at the edges.  
**

**- does the fail dance -**

**- dies - **

**Blame Torean if this sucks. She said it was 'awesome,' but she could have been lying. =D (READ MIZER) =D  
**

* * *

Edward gave a muffled curse as he was dropped on cold stone floor, his palms scraping up chalk and exposing a gritty texture of flesh and blood. There was a dark hood over his head - Archer had mentioned something about hiding their location - and therefore he didn't move, feeling too sickly vulnerable to do anything but shake and breathe.

Once the car had stopped in the silent and frigid air of night, the hood had been pulled swiftly over his head, and from there he remembered lots of walking. First on pavement, then on cool crunching grass, then a marble hallway, down dozens of steps, and finally into the dank and echoing atmosphere of what reminded him of a cave. It was dark beyond the veil of the black fabric, so he supposed it didn't matter that he was technically blind.

Either way, he shrank back as he heard footsteps and muffled cries from upstairs. He stopped only when the curving edge of his spine touched solid concrete, and he ran his palms behind him, over the smooth stone and bending his head back so that his fevered neck could gain relief. A heady, nauseous sickness poisoned his stomach, everything too hot and sweaty and trembling.

Any time he breathed, his body erupted in small spasms, his heart pushing blood through his arteries until he felt they were clogged. He could sense his pulse twitching in his throat, his wrist, his brain, and swallowed hard, tilting his head toward the ceiling and trying to imagine he were anywhere else. He didn't vocalize his fear; didn't vocalize that it terrified him, being trapped underground with Frank Archer, with Havoc most likely dead and Roy the only man stupid and desperate enough to come after him.

The back of his mouth closed abruptly. His eyes began to sting. Jean was dead. Fuery was dead. They had to be. He had seen Archer kill Fuery himself - the needle, intended for him, intended for his veins and his blood and his heart, driven into Fuery's body like a spear. Oh, God. And Jean...

He gave a muffled, choked sob, the rough tape moistened through his reluctant saliva and tears. Jean was dead and it was his fault. He should have never brought him into any of this. If he hadn't given in to that wonderful - _awful - _feeling of inclusion and familiarity, that warmth and - fuck, _love _- maybe none of this would have ever happened. But it had felt so good. To be touched but not touched.

Because of him, Jean had gone after Roy; Jean had been shot, and hurt, and finally burned to death. No one could have survived that blast. Even he wasn't sure if he was alive or in some form of hell.

He blinked into the light as the hood was softly removed, his hair clinging to the black fabric with static. Frank smirked at him in the darkness, his eyes like a cat's, a strange yellow filament behind the ill-natured iris. "Hello, beautiful." He knelt on the floor, wary of the teen's ribcage rising with frantic breath, vulnerability and despair inside every bitten whimper.

Ed turned his head as the dark-haired man leaned forward, a small shriek coming from his throat as Archer ripped the tape from his mouth in one quick and painful stroke. He remembered those hands touching him, those cruel lips painting his neck, and snapped at his fingers with his teeth. He was rewarded with a painful, backhanded slap. "You mother fucker..." He hissed.

The room was cave-like, but in its own industrial sense. The ceiling was low and crawling with pipes and cobwebs, the floor a dull gray concrete with a single rusted sewer drain in the center. The walls were concrete and lined with a mesh of wiry metal; against one was a lawn chair and a medical tray on wheels. Empty bottles of cheap liquor and marijuana stubs littered the floor and tray, the alcohol just barely disguising the scent of mildew and blood.

"You're cute when you're scared." Frank purred. He snatched up the teen's bound wrists, tugging him up from the ground so that they were eye level. Ed was half limp in his grip, eyes golden and wide and fearful. Archer's erection began to throb gently in his fraying jeans. "I've been given permission to do whatever the fuck I want with you, so play nice."

"Where's Riza?" Ed rasped, fingers prying at Archer's in desperation. He kept his expression glazed over and hard, far from wanting to be cute. "Tell me where she is."

"Charlie wanted to get to know her a little better."

"Who's Charlie?" Ed demanded shakily, watching the door in case the other man and Hawkeye were to come in. He was more frightened for her than himself, wondering where the man could have taken her; he had seen the stranger eyeing her pervasively in the car, but hoped it hadn't come to that.

"Charlie is your lord and liberator."

Edward looked briefly up at the ceiling in a hot haze, before Archer took a tight hold on his hair and pulled. Frank slammed his head against the wall with a sick smack, strands of gold coming loose in his fingertips. Ed fell to the floor in a heap, eyes widening as he heard the chink of Archer's belt being unbuckled. He curled his legs beneath him with his hands over his head protectively, unable to keep from crying out as Archer kicked him hard in the side. Pain flourished like the match head enveloping itself in flame.

Frank laughed, pulling the belt from its loops and holding it firmly in his dry hands. "Get up, you little slut!" He yelled, cracking the belt hard against the concrete. The metal buckle chipped away a part of the cement edge, leaving faint powder dust in its wake. Ed remained still, staring at the soles of the man's heavy boots, a definite tremble in his eyes. Another kick to the chest shattered his hold on reality. Pain splintered along his ribs, and he tried to crawl away, gasping for air.

Frank yanked him back by the hood of his sweatshirt, cutting off the boy's air supply and being rewarded with a throaty scream. He pushed him roughly to the ground where Ed lay on his back, head turned to the side and his arms frozen in defense. Frank took hold of his wrist tightly. The bones felt so cool and smooth and lovely in his hand. But he remembered the teen trying so hard to get away by striking him, and with a sick smirk, twisted Ed's wrist until he heard a snap, and suddenly the bones didn't feel so smooth any more.

Ed bit down on a cry of pain, his lower lip bleeding from the razor sharpness of his teeth; tears streamed freely from his closed eyelids, and he cursed himself for sobbing, a dull and terrible pain flowing from the nerves of his wrist all along his arm in stabs and stings. Frank admired the dark purple bruise that began to develop there, still holding it tight in his hand.

He had never seen Ed so vulnerable, so innocent, so completely at his mercy. He hated it. Hated the guilty pleasure that came from breaking him. Loved it, because it felt so fucking right.

He snarled and threw down the boy's arm, and Ed curled into himself with his broken wrist hidden beneath him. Archer forced him onto his stomach with the toe of his boot, and then got on his knees, ignoring the pleas and whimpers that came from Ed's lips. "Shut up." He husked, laying his belt down on the cement before Ed's flickering golden eyes. He petted his head gently, threateningly, running his fingers through the locks of silky soft hair. "Or I'll cut your throat."

Edward blinked at him. His head felt like it was filled with sharp stones and boiling fire. "Then do it."

Archer reached into the inner pocket of his shirt, and pulled out a shimmering metal knife. His jeans slid a bit further down his hips, the belt's absence not faring well. He straddled the smaller body's waist. Ed whimpered quietly, burying his head in his arm where the dark fabric of his hoody kept out the light. _Stop. _Frank put the tip of the knife at the bottom of the sweatshirt, licking his hot lips as his knuckles grazed the fair skin underneath. Without hint or warning, he cut the hem of the shirt, fabric ripping loudly as he dragged the blade upward through frayed black string and fiber.

He was careful not to cut Ed. Even if the initial screams of pain were well worth it, he didn't want to destroy his playground. Not yet. He had already fractured the kid's wrist, maybe a rib or two. Charlie would be more than pissed if he sliced him or drew the slightest drop of blood. That was Charlie's only rule: _His blood is mine. _

He finally cut the last strand, and it snapped, the teen's back relatively exposed and cold. Frank ground his member into the small body underneath, leaning forward so that he could touch his lips to sweet flesh. He coaxed the lethargic teen out of the shredded shirt, and threw it haphazardly near the doorway. Ed trembled slightly, his breathing coming in short irregular gasps. Frank licked the back of his neck, the perspiration pooling there a hot and salty treat for his tongue. He absolutely adored that the kid wasn't fighting; he liked that he was holding still, caught in the clutches of shock and trauma not yet passed.

"You're going to die here." Frank whispered into his hair, kissing the soft tangle of silver gold roots, his hands twisting under the teen's body to grope freely. Ed's chest muscles were stiff and twitching, his heart beat vibrating the older man's rough palms. "You're going to cry, you're going to beg. You're going to scream for your fucking mother. And you're going to die alone, in your own blood...no one will find your body, Edward..." The feel of the boy's name in his mouth sent an orgasm of shivers through his core.

Ed winced, a sob catching in his throat.

"After all. Who would look for your body? No one would care. You're going to rot here. Your pretty little face will rot away into nothing. Well," the older man snickered, nibbling at the shell of his ear, "At least no one will touch you anymore-"

A loud slam echoed across the small room. Ed jumped from beneath Archer's aroused form, and then regretted it. His heart had beaten painfully against his ribs and the man's erection had pressed into his spine. He kept his eyes closed, tears blurring his vision, small relief spreading in waves as the older man got off of him. He curled into a tight and guarded ball for warmth.

Something was dropped on the ground with a heavy thud, just by the doorway.

"Bout time you showed up." Archer said innocently, as though he hadn't been beating the crap out of Ed a few moments earlier. Ed's fist clenched at that thought, listening as a few curse words and laughs were exchanged, a pack of cigarettes thrown from across the room. Archer lowered himself into the lawn chair with a creak of plastic, and lit up.

"How is our guest?" The ball-capped man muttered. Edward heard the shuffling of old shoes on cement and another lighter flicking open and shut. The sweet scent of pot met his nostrils and filled them harshly.

"The little bitch said some naughty things to me. I hope you don't mind if I roughed him up a bit." Archer chortled, blowing out a nice circle of smoke.

There was a low, painful, and muffled moan. _Riza. _Then a yelp and the sound of a swift kick to the face. Splat. Ed's eyes flashed open, only to find a heavy stream of blood cascading from Hawkeye's newly broken nose. There was a thick strip of tape covering her mouth and a sharp string of barbed wire keeping her wrists together, blood dribbling down from deep scars. She squirmed a bit, meeting his gaze but doing nothing, her purple eye swollen shut.

"What did you do to her?" He asked quietly. His voice was weak. He swallowed as both men's gazes focused on him, eyes traveling up and down his beaten form.

"Never you mind." The ball-capped man said with a grin, taking purposefully slow steps toward him. He stopped as his shadow fell across the boy's stiff body, and squatted down so that the glowing end of his pot joint was parallel to Ed's tawny eyes. "We're going to have lots of fun together, aren't we?" He smirked, his drugged out eyes squinting as a husky laugh escaped his pale, chapped lips. He took a drag on the joint, and exhaled a thick sour sweet smoke in the boy's face.

Edward blinked back his nausea, examining the face shrouded under the shadow of the hat. He had a dark complexion, and mad, hollow black eyes. He shivered. Black eyes. Black as coal and stone. "You look like Roy." He found himself saying, more to solidify the illusion that it was all a dream.

The man's smile turned down. He flicked the ash on the concrete, watching as Ed's hand jerked back reflexively. "Do you want to see my face? Angel?" He responded gruffly. Weathered, hard, scarred hands reached for Ed's chin. The teen flinched, finding the caress tough like leather. He suddenly decided he didn't care to see the man's face. Something told him that he didn't want to know. That he should scream. "I'll show you my face."

He took off the ball-cap. The dim room enveloped his hollow cheekbones and his darkly shaded eyes with specks of red-brown and dazed memory. Ed sucked in a breath, identifying the painful, half healed scar of flesh torn from the left side of his face, purple blue and black and red and yellow from puss and open wound. Bone showed through the milky white membrane of flesh, muscle tissue a dry winding of meaty decay. Ed's gaze was drawn to the man's plaid shirtsleeve tucked into the shoulder; it was flappy, empty.

This man was...

This man had no arm.

He nodded at Edward's horror, laughing with derelict amusement. He replaced the ball-cap over short brown hair. "This is what happens when you mess with taboo. Isn't it, Edward Elric?"

Ed didn't respond at first. His mouth was wide open, his jaw trembling. "Who are you?" Had this man committed the worst sin imaginable? Human transmutation? And if that was the case, then why in the hell...no. This was the work of alchemy, true, but the stranger hadn't tried bringing anyone back. A trickle of painful, bruising tears started in the corner of his eye. "Oh, God..." He raked his fisted knuckles along the concrete, shakily breathing, unable to tear his eyes from the black orbs peering down at him.

Archer's smirk had gone deadly.

The stranger turned, met Frank's gaze, and winked. He grinned to reveal chipped but whitened teeth. At some point, this man had been well cared for. Perhaps not so long ago. Now, he reached for the pocketknife on the rawhide cord around his neck. He flipped it open, the blade exiting its sheath with a soft angelic ringing that sounded like a bell. "It's a shame." He said softly, watching his reflection in the blade. "I have to say, I thought that the way Mustang talked about you was purely infatuation..."

Frank rose from his seat, and started circling behind the brown headed stranger, wildly expressive and bordering on blood lust.

The man with the pocket knife laughed again as though returning to a memory. It wasn't a happy laugh. More sad, more slippery with irony and pain. His cold eyes met Ed's, and he put out the pot joint on the cement, leaving an ashy black mark that burned into cold dust. "You really are a kind of pretty little thing." He reached out to cup the teen's jaw, but Ed jerked his head to the side.

"Don't touch me-"

The man's nostrils flared, and he snatched up the teen's broken wrist. Without care, without feeling, he shoved the blade of his knife straight through the flesh and bone of his palm up to the hilt. A penetrating scream burst against his ear drum, but he wouldn't forget the nice slick sound of tendon ripping apart -

"You son of a bitch!" Edward cried out, doing his best to kick him hard. Blood leaked around the edges of the blade, but the stranger's fingers were still locked around the hilt. He bit down on his lower lip, drawing still more blood that tasted like bitter copper, as the man twisted the sharp blade slightly between the bones of his hand. His teeth cracked against each other as he tried to keep his screams locked in his throat -

"Hold him down." The stranger shouted above his weak sobs, yanking the blade out sickeningly. "I want the little fucker to know who he's dealing with."

Archer obeyed, coming to Edward's side. Ed kicked and screamed at him, spitting in his face as cold fingers wrapped themselves around his wrists and pinned them to the floor. He tried kneeing Archer in the crotch, finding the man's warm body cloaking his, but missed. In return there was nothing but pain as Frank impaled the frail skin of his broken wrist with his fingernails, choking off any protest with a violently forceful kiss. The man's tongue slipped to the back of his mouth and further - he couldn't breathe, he couldn't -

"Riza!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, looking pleadingly toward the stony, shocked woman on the other side of the room. She flinched, but otherwise didn't notice him. He felt Frank's sandpaper hands groping his bare chest, sliding on it and around it as sharp and bitter teeth bit down on his lip, "Fuck-" _Somebody help me. _

Foreign hands tugged back on his hair, forcing his head back so that his throat was exposed. He met the crippled face of the man, ball cap back in place, and tried to yell again. Archer slapped him hard in the face. "Hey." The stranger ordered. "Hold his mouth open."

"Why?"

"Do it."

Archer obeyed the command, taking both of the teen's wrist in one hand and his jaw in another. He pried his lips apart and squeezed his mouth tight so that it was forced open. Wet tears tickled his dry, cracked palms, Ed's eyes staring at him head on and screaming with despair and fear.

"No!" Ed shouted, barely recognizing his own voice as the sharp knife blade was shoved inside his mouth. This was the beginning of slow, painful death. This was how it always started. He was going to die. But before he died, they were going to take everything from him. He broke off into a sob, shaking hard, as Frank grinned at the strange man with the knife. Then his body jerked.

Sharp, mind numbing, horrific pain shot through his mouth and his brain and his spine. The metal tip of the knife cut at his gum, blood shooting over his tongue and nearly gagging him. He could hear laughing behind his own screams, and he kicked hard, every movement like a spasm he couldn't control; he went deaf momentarily, the knife slicing under one of his back teeth and cutting a nerve at the root. The pain in his head was magnified -

Through his dim, tear stricken vision, he saw Hawkeye stir on the other side of the room. She took one look at him, and -

He sobbed weakly as the knife withdrew itself, the strange man's bitter tasting hands taking out two of his - or what used to be his - teeth, blood stained and cruelly hacked away at. He discarded them on the floor. Edward tried crawling away, terror highlighting his face again, as the man made to get back inside of his mouth - Archer tightened his grip on his broken wrist, twisting the bones painfully -

"No!! Stop it!" He choked on the knife as it sailed over his tongue, the edge splicing the tender flesh there. His mouth was dark red from blood, and he could taste salt intermingling with the copper. Then hope spread through him tenderly. He went still.

Archer froze, detecting a shadow behind him. He turned, gasping as he found Riza there, blood dripping on his face from her broken nose and wrists. He had no time to react as she pulled back her arms and slugged him hard in the head with force and barbed wire. He cried out, his ear tearing on one of the sharp wire clumps; he was knocked to the ground, the woman screaming as the barbs sunk more deeply into her flesh.

Edward was dragged backwards by his loose hair. He yelled as he was pulled, his back finally hitting solid wall.

Riza was on top of Archer, repeatedly punching him in the face with both hands, his head knocking to the side with every hit and violently smacking against the concrete floor. "Don't you ever fucking touch him again! Do you fucking hear me? Stay the hell away from him!" She ignored the pain streaking through her arms, the bright red blood painting her wrists. Frank spat out a glob of blood from a split lip, and then took hold of her forearms tightly. She was weak, and he knew that -

The strange man stood behind Edward, one hand tightly gripping his hair and the the other pressing the knife against his throat, just hard enough so that he cut into the fair skin as easily as butter. Ed closed his eyes again, quivering and wishing that he were dead.

Frank flipped his and Riza's positions, slamming her against the wall. Her head hit it with a sick crack and then she went limp, collapsing on the floor as blood pooled around the wounds on her body. Archer cursed at her, spitting another glob of blood on the floor, and then turned to face Edward. Warmth coursed through him, lust snapping up his mentality in one vicious lunge. He crawled forward at the stranger's approving smirk, and with blood sticky fingers, wiped a stray tear from the teen's face.

The man removed the knife from Ed's throat, and handed it to Archer. "Play nice, now. We can't damage him too soon..." He stroked the teen's sweat matted hair. Archer licked at his dry lips, watching as Ed's eyes filled to the brim with moisture, sunken and already looking far beyond repair.

"I know." He replied. He pushed Ed down, the teen resignedly whimpering in pain and betrayal and some other emotion that he didn't care to name. He practically ripped the buttons of his shirt clean off the fabric, throwing the discarded article down by Ed's ruined hoody. His jeans, already sliding down his hips at indecent levels, were taken off as well. He gently took the teen by the shoulders and guided him so that he was lying on his back. Ed didn't help, back to a state of frozen fear. "You going to watch?" Archer asked the strange man, who was standing by the wayside.

"No," the man replied, hands deep in his pockets, grinning at Hawkeye's body, "Who says I don't get my share?"

Archer shrugged, absentmindedly working on unbuttoning Edward's jeans. "Suit yourself." They were tight around his waist, the skinny kind that clung to flesh. He hated that. It pissed him off. Only downside; people wore them to show off their bodies, but they were a pain in the ass to get off for the actual fuck. Once that was accomplished (and ignoring the sloppy mess work of kisses the other man was performing on Riza's dead weight form) he slid off the rest of his clothes. Edward stared at him.

Ed wasn't sure why he refused to fight. He felt sick. Too sick to move, almost too sick to breathe. Everything...everything hurt. "Please." He whispered, feeling a cold tear on his face. He cringed as a rough hand touched his knee, then ran along the inside of his bare thigh. His eyes closed tight and then reopened. "Please don't do this to me."

Archer ignored him. He was in no mood to listen to pleas. It had been too long since he had first laid eyes on the kid; now, he finally had him, all to himself, and he wasn't going to waste his time on petty words. He got on top of the small body, a guttural moan escaping him as they touched; Ed started crying, and he almost felt guilty - almost, if not for the unbelievably good sensation trembling through him.

Ed drifted away. He didn't know how, he didn't know where. It was like physical, mental, emotional detachment; indescribable numbness that took a life of its own and dragged him back and forth along unconsciousness. But at the same time, he knew what was happening; heightened ignorance was the only thing that kept him from going insane. He should have heard screaming, he should have seen blood, he should have felt pain and terror and a thousand other things that had become such an intimate, dark part of his life.

But he didn't hear any of that. Lips locked on his, but he looked beyond the face they belonged to, toward the dim bulb on the ceiling, flickering and waving, little dust specks and gnats crowding around it like villagers hoping for a drop of rain - _Lior - "Move forward, Edward" - _and all the while he kept hearing his mother's voice. His fucking mother. Whispering encouragement. Not threats in his ear, not bitter nothings about death and torture and defilement and - _"A ring of flowers would be nice-" _

_Paper flowers. _

_Discarded_

_Thrown against the wind -  
_

_They're fake. _

_They cut. _

He screamed hard, something thick and -

_But they're beautiful. _

A single tear trailed down his face. Diamonds aplenty, but so little to compensate them. What reward would he receive for the tears? Just shit. Oh, no, there wasn't equivalency at all - _"It's just a bedtime story! Alchemy is not -" _

If this was how he was going to die, alone, in the dark, being raped of everything but his memories - which was unfair, because memories were the only thing he didn't desire - then so be it. But he'd be damned. He'd be damned if he went without fighting. But fighting wasn't an option anymore. He had stopped fighting once the generals stopped giving orders. He was a dog. Dogs don't follow anything but a command.

What command had he been given?

Lie still?

Shut up?

Don't fuck up or I'll kill you?

Vulnerability was a bitch and a tough pill to swallow.

Then everything stopped. Sound, color, adrenaline, sexual hormones he wanted nothing to do with. Shame and humiliation didn't come this time, either because he was dead or because he was undead. The heavy form on top of him went limp with a final heavy breath, warmth cradling his body for a brief while. He couldn't feel a goddamn thing from the waist down.

Didn't want to.

He thought. And then stopped thinking.

The weight lifted itself. He was cold.

"Kid doesn't understand what a good fuck he is-"

He dreamed. He woke up. They were still talking. There was still blood. He was shaking. Hard. He looked at his wrist. And it was different.

He made no sound as he was pulled up off the floor, his own sticky blood frozen around him like a gothic pool, and propped against the wall. He stared blankly ahead. They had Riza. They were asking him questions. The ball capped man laughed at his replies. Incoherent. "I don't know." Asked again. "I don't know."

He was slapped hard.

Then it all came rushing back to him.

"Answer him, you fucking whore." Archer commanded, his clothes back in place but hanging loosely, the buttons undone on his wrinkled and blood stained shirt. "Answer him or she dies."

Ed shook his head, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about! I've been telling you that!"

"Jog your damn memory." The ball capped man commanded (_commanded! Follow the fucking command!)_, holding the knife perilously close to the blond woman's throat, "The girl you killed in Ishbal. What was her name?"

_"I realize that the people we killed don't matter-" _

Edward's eyes misted over, and he said more desperately, "I don't know! I killed a lot of girls in Ishbal. Kids. Fuck, do you think we fucking took attendance or somethi-" Archer took hold of him from behind, bending both of his arms behind his back and clamping a sour dirty hand over his mouth. He screamed against the fingers, knowing that if he didn't do something, Hawkeye was as good as dead.

"Just kill the bitch." Frank said dryly. "Save us the trouble."

The other man shrugged, and started to move -

Ed bit down hard on Archer's fingers, eliciting a pained yell and gaining enough room to shout, "It was Michaela or something. I don't know. The Hashuin District, that's where you said she lived, and I remember the house specifically because it was dark and-" He was thrown back against the wall, spine bruising in the process, and then was released. He trembled, rocking back and forth and feeling too exposed for comfort.

"Did he get it right?" Archer asked.

The other man shrugged, letting Hawkeye's lethargic form fall against Ed's. Her hair strew about the teen's shoulder, and he appreciated the warmth of a familiar person; she was still dressed, he could tell that much, and therefore wasn't sure what all had happened. He had been so preoccupied with his own life earlier that he had never cared much for her state of mind of body.

"No, but it was close enough." The man said. "Anyway, it's getting too late. You have a wife and child to attend to, don't you, Colonel?"

"Yeah." Archer mumbled absentmindedly. "Yeah, I suppose I should be getting to that. It'd be a shame if Melinda thought I was having an affair." He gave Ed a last, hate soaked glare, and then walked out the door. The other man stood watching the blond for a long while.

Ed didn't notice.

"You know," the stranger said, "It's been a rough night. You must be confused. I'd hate for you to double up on suffering dosages, so..." He held up his pocket knife to the light bulb. A moth fluttered its wings and then went still. Without another word the man went forward, knelt forward, and made a vicious, slick swipe of the knife.

The moth flew off the bulb, escaping out the open doorway.

"Charlie? You coming?" Archer's voice echoed from the stairs.

"Yeah," the stranger replied, watching as blood flowed like a river from one open, sucking, gaping slit in Riza's throat. She was going in her sleep. A fair trade; the woman had done nothing wrong, after all. Just associated with the filth of the earth. Edward stared at her with trembling eyes, saying nothing, feeling hot wetness spread across his flesh -

Nothing.

Just emptiness.

Emptiness.

_Please help him he's gonna bleed to death this pain's nothing compared to what he's going through he ditched us I can't say I hate him stop that's a forbidden science the one who receives pain can sleep but the one who gives pain cannot sleep I kill therefore I am there are so many times when I should have died when you live your life will end sooner or later_

_Everything in this world flows around and circulates -_

_You're a sin against nature and your body is in so much pain. _

_So. _

_Small.  
_

* * *

.....................

**You just lost the game. :D The end fell apart, but I was trying to convey him kind of falling apart. So it works! The mess of text at the end are direct quotes from the anime...I think 3, 7, and a few with Izumi and Scar respectively. - shrugs - Wanted to connect it somehow and make the universe feel a bit more canon even if I've torn the ever living fuck out of it. **

**You should understand what's going on now. Maybe not HOW it's happening, but that's no so important. You'll figure it out. Roy's a smart cookie. So's Havoc. And some other people. **

**- moment of silence for Riza - **

**- I told you you were going to kill me - **

**- Feels bad because I was planning on killing her from the beginning and now seemed a good time - **

**Reviews? :D  
**


	25. Choices

**Way too much dialogue in this chapter...and lots of explaining...transitioning. I kind of like it and kind of don't. I got lazy. XP Anyway, you get two chapters. Lucky you. Essentially it's the same chapter, but it got too long, and I hate long chapters. They piss me off. I DID NOT HAVE TIME TO LOOK IT OVER TO MAKE SURE IT WAS ALL ACCURATE. I'M SORRY. HAD TO GO TO BED. My grandpa's been recovering from brain surgery all week, so I hope you can all understand why writing this wasn't a number one priority. :) I've been pretty upset by the whole thing and this fic helped keep my mind off.  
**

* * *

The floor was in dire need of a sweeping. From where he sat in an old, faux-leather trimmed chair, Havoc could see dust bunnies and gray fuzz stretching across the green tile landscape. He was alone in the main office of the FBI's legal branch, trying in vain to clear his head and shake off whatever the hospital had drugged him with.

His mother might have had a heart attack if she went there. He smirked, smashing his cheap cigarette in someone's ash tray, hearing his mother's voice grumbling about how nobody in their right mind could pick up a broom anymore.

The room was about as big as his house, very dark, with great big windows that let in a view of the grittier industrial side of Central. Several desks were all pressed close together, the tidiest sporting a large amount of folders and papers and pens in a seemingly jumbled order. None of the desks had family photographs. None of the desks showed any sign that the task presented their owners was at all a pleasant one.

He took a long drag on the cancer stick, nodding his head. Yes, Edward was related to these people, that much was certain.

After being transferred to a different hospital, all of the confusion and exhaustion seemed to have reached a focal point. The kid was his number one priority, and he couldn't find him if he was tied down to a bed. Luckily, Martin Creme rescued him, citing the fact that the hospital needed all the rooms it could get and the task force needed Jean to take care of some hard business.

So far, he wasn't sure what role he played in the business itself. As soon as they'd arrived at headquarters - FBI headquarters, the government's high-tech crime-breaking bureau - he had been left in the abandoned offices while Martin sped off to conferences and Penny headed to the forensics lab.

His only orders: Stay put. Don't worry.

But how could he possibly do that when the tide of memories struck his conscience, blood pooling on the ground, flames licking at the walls. Crawling helplessly along, choking on the smoke of delirium, the boy's screams never quite fading away even as he was stolen.

"I'm going to find you, kid," Jean muttered, his voice cracking a bit, looking out of the far window. Tiny Christmas beams of red and gold fell in a snaking line along the highway. "I promise you that."

Behind him, the double oak doors opened with a creak of hinges. Jean turned around. A plainclothes detective with a balding head was restraining a man in handcuffs. The man was wearing a dark leather jacket and his eyes were half-closed, a drunken slur of bullshit frothing from his mouth. The detective told Jean to mind his own business or get out.

"What's he here for?"

"Confidential information, civilian."

"Hey," Jean growled, slightly more irritated than he might have been under different circumstances, "That's Lieutenant Havoc to you." His fingers found the arm of his chair and tightened until the leather groaned.

The drunken man's eyes widened, and a rasping, knee-slapping chuckle escaped his cracked lips. "Jean Havoc?" He stopped, and then made to fight the detective off, but the cop kept a cold grip on his arms. The man finally quit, but the determination in his inflamed irises didn't. "Oh, man. You don't remember me, do you? 1989? The Pulp on fifty-second street? Come on, you have to-"

"No, don't have a clue what you're talking about."

"Like fuck you don't. It's me, Ray."

Ray. Ray Craig. A drug dealer and a serial rapist, and Jean's former best friend. He could recall many late nights where he'd bail the kid out, often pooling from his baby sister's recovery funds. Jean took another drag, looking away as if that could erase the unforgettable. "All I remember about Ray is that he was a wasted son of a bitch that screwed my life to pieces."

"Aww, come on, this ain't about Karma, is it? Cause she's doing fine, Jean, just fine-"

"Get out," Havoc commanded darkly, rising from the chair and noticing his hands were balled into shaking fists. His legs wobbled beneath him and he felt he might collapse under any more pressure. He had come here in the slim hope that he might find Ed, make sure that the kid wouldn't share the same fate as countless other corpses. This wasn't the time to be seeing old friends in the flesh, least of all Ray; the man was currently the epitome of everything he feared, including himself.

The detective watched them with an air of audience, engrossed by the meeting as if it were a television drama. He kept his hold on Ray's forearms but his beady pupils darted between the two men, a slight smirk painting his face.

"Yeah," Ray said with a dull grin that showcased yellow teeth. "She don't mind having to care for a heroin baby all by herself. Not at all-"

"You shut the fuck up."

"And you go and become a goddamn _soldier_? Was that supposed to make everything easier? I know she's a dirty bitch and a liar, that her parents didn't like her going with a white kid, but for Christ's soul. Working for the army. A regular dog now, aren't you? I don't get many dogs on the trail now, Jean-"

Havoc ran a surprisingly cold, rough hand over his face, breathing in and out and trying to forget. A drafty hospital five years ago, his lover's screams and her parent's laments and threats and glares and the final painful cry of an infant that never had a choice. "Bet you don't."

"But we get a few."

"Cut the crap. You know I'm clean."

"I'm not talking about you." Ray's eyebrows quirked up, his pale tongue flicking out against the cracks. "You know that bastard they got on TV? Murdered all them people? Used to get him a lot. Used to get him a whole lot. Crazy son of a bitch, always talking about this damn kid he was in love with-" He didn't say anything more, because in all of a split second Jean had rushed forward, grabbed him by the front of his dirtied button shirt and thrust him hard against a wall.

Frantic breathing was all either of them could hear for a moment or two. "You listen to me," Havoc said in a foreign, gravelly tone that he didn't recognize. "You tell me anything and everything you know about that fucker."

Ray smiled painfully. "Or what?"

The detective stared at them, dumbstruck, and then at his hands to find they were empty. "Oi! Let him go, Lieutenant. Assaulting a suspect doesn't get you points with the higher ups, you damned dog."

"You shut your mouth!" Jean yelled at him, face going red as a traffic light. The world seemed to shout for him to stop, but he couldn't stop, not when he was so far from the truth and Ray was the closest thing he had to finding Ed. The detective swallowed, sensing the righteous, hard, hot anger swelling in Jean's brain that was driving the many crazy. Anyone who worked with the law had felt the emotion at one point or another.

Jean pushed his fists up against Ray's throat, driving their bodies closer together so that he could feel the man's heat and see straight into his sociopath eyes. "You know that kid he was talking about?" He whispered, willing himself not to fall victim to a pathetic tone. "Happens to be someone very important to me. If you don't tell me everything you know about Mustang, you're dead."

Ray's grin widened impossibly. "I'm not telling you shi-" Jean delivered a blow that crunched his jaw, the man's words bubbling away in the blood sliding down his throat.

* * *

The room was small, smelling vaguely of stale cigarettes and beer; about two dozen fold-up chairs lined it, like a therapy circle, like a sixth grade classroom. There was a cork board on the far wall with pictures of scarred, overweight, tattooed criminals, all alike in that they usually preyed on the young and they harbored dead to the world feelings for their fathers.

Then again, the whole task force hated their fathers, as well.

He had seven men that he could call loyal. Maybe in some other profession, he might have considered that a pretty fair percentage of his subordinates, but this was police work, and it wasn't. He smoked more cigars than all of them combined, and had the old musty smell to prove it. He looked them all over and they muttered hellos, sitting close together among the crowded room of strangers. Rare media affiliates, the brass, the Fuhrer's brown-haired mousy-eyed secretary.

He shrugged off his tweed jacket and cleared his throat. This wasn't a casual meeting. The phone was disconnected. The doors and windows were all locked. He stepped to the front of the room before a chalky blackboard, and addressed the small crowd. Whispers of discontent and doubt slipped through his ear and out the other. "As you have been briefed, and no doubt news reports have made you aware, today at approximately 6:33 PM an alchemically charged explosion took out two and a half floors at St. Lito's medical center. The blast killed twenty-six people as is known presently, and left eleven others missing."

There was a general nod of agreement. One reporter spoke up, and some heads turned with a shuffle of clothing. "Sir, is it true that the military is regarding the explosion as a terrorist attack? Why would anyone target a hospital?"

Creme licked out at his lips. "Currently, I can't confirm that particular statement. At the moment, I can tell you that there were several top officers residing at the medical center, including two State Alchemists. It might have been a poorly plotted assassination attempt, as generals Grumman and Hidel have made statements of. However, it is my opinion that the purpose of the explosion was to hide a separate crime from the public eye."

A vicious murmur spread all across the crowd, heads turning to and fro. General Hidel, arms folded and his eyebrows cutting down across his eyes, frowned. "Spreading your own damn rumors, Chief?" He grumbled.

"Of course not. Just making sure the public's aware of all the possibilities. Aren't you supposed to be an advocate of free speech?" Creme said back, spit flying from his lips in barely contained fury. He settled back with a satisfied smirk that twitched under his mustache. "Unless that went down the toilet when you shut the rebellion soldiers out of conferences-"

"You're speaking out of line. Get back to the subject at hand or I'll cite you for implied threat."

"Very well."

Another reporter, a girl with black hair in twin braids, spoke up. "The State Alchemists in the fire. Has anyone found their bodies?"

"No. As far as we can tell, the two of them are alive and possibly on the move. It isn't in my jurisdiction to relay the following to any media personnel, and therefore it is properly unauthorized for anyone in this room to send the information to press, but it's possible that Colonel Roy Mustang abducted Lieutenant Colonel Elric for personal reasons."

For a moment everyone was dumbstruck by the revelation. The girl thought for a moment, and then said, "And those reasons include - ?"

Martin didn't bat an eye. "Mustang was being detained for the rape and assault of a minor. That minor happened to be Lieutenant Colonel Elric." He let the last few syllables drip slowly off his tongue, watching the general's expression for any sign of discontent or warning. Disappointingly, he found the man had looked away, either in guilt or in seething anger. "Evidence concludes as much. I have a hard copy of a cell phone call made by Colonel Mustang just after the abduction, and several photographs in addition. I cannot confirm the dates of the photographs but can only conclude they were made at the time of the call."

"So we're not just dealing with a terrorist attack," one of Martin's men said from the front, "We're dealing with a kidnapping."

Small tremors of shock vibrated their bodies, human nature telling them to take pity on the boy and logic telling them that the deaths of twenty-six innocents was far more relevant. Finally the braided girl managed to ask, "I'm guessing Roy Mustang is the terrorist in your theory?"

"I'm not playing guessing games, ma'am, and I advise you don't either. No, I'm certain that Roy Mustang started that fire, and I'm certain that if action is not taken, another life may hang in the balance."

The Fuhrer's secretary took a step forward. Her body was lean and her snarl was vicious. An oily soft voice came from her parted lips. "Sorry to interrupt your little pity party, but I hardly think this is the time to be worrying about some alchemist brat. In case you haven't noticed, he's the Fullmetal. Surely everyone in here has heard of him. Who's to say he can't take care of himself? For God's sake. We're mourning the tragedy of the innocents and trying to catch a killer, not chase false evidence."

"Innocents?" Martin glared at her, his eyes widening. His nostrils flared. "Like the people your beloved president slaughtered in Ishbal?"

"I'm not going to turn this into a debate," She replied coolly. "In any case, I doubt anyone would like to waste valuable resources searching for some kid's corpse. You know the forty-five minute rule."

"So let's find the body, then. Or is there another reason you're keeping your _resources _under such a tight lid? Maybe you sons of bitches were planning to kill him all along, is that it?"

"Hey!" Hidel snapped, forcing the two of them to look at him. His glare was aimed at Martin specifically. The flicker of a dozen cigarettes danced on his face and made him appear all the more irritated. "Stop the bullshit. Ms. Douglas, I'd appreciate it if you didn't incite the situation further. As for you, Creme, you're only digging your own grave further. Stick to the facts and not your own bias or I'll have to jump in there and grab a shovel myself. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir."

"I know you had a previous relationship with Lieutenant Colonel Elric," Hidel continued, shooting a darkly jaded look at the secretary, "But that does not give you the right to assume and be promptly regarded. Continue with your analysis."

Creme fixed him with a hard and inclusive stare. Stark honesty contrasted with the shade of the flickering ceiling bulb, and he realized that the man was only trying to protect him from his own words. In the entirety of a moment, he understood that the truth wasn't going to win anyone over; if he was going to find Edward, he would have to rely on the skills of an alchemist. Equivalent exchange. If the higher ups didn't have a concrete reason to find the kid, he'd have to search for one, make one up, or roll over like the dog he was. "Understood, sir."

He picked up a remote on one of the desks at the front of the room, and pressed a button. The overhead projector screen rolled down automatically, and the computer hummed as it turned itself on. "The very least I can confirm is that Roy Mustang is alive," he said dejectedly, "But I'm afraid that I still don't agree with Ms. Douglas."

Someone turned the lights off. Two photographs were included in the presentation on the screen; his stomach dropped like a rock, not because they were new to him but because they managed to pull him back into hopelessness. Nobody flinched. They were quite used to material just like it, if not worse. "At approximately 7:12 this evening, the first picture was sent via cell phone to myself and Lieutenant Havoc from another phone allegedly used by Roy Mustang. There is no apparent motive for his calling my phone in particular."

A small man raised his hand. "This is Elric, I presume?"

"Yes."

"And it isn't possible that the picture was either faked or taken at an earlier period in time?"

"No," Martin said with some impatience. He stalked over to the man and pointed hard at the screen. "For one, there is no reason a sixteen year old boy would fake his own abduction at any time before the event itself. Secondly, you look at his eyes and you tell me any of that is fake-"

"Creme, get back to the footage," Hidel warned.

"Sorry. Anyway. I can see why you might think that, because the car in this picture is a white 1993 Toyota, according to the frame and the vinyl interior. Roy Mustang stole a different car: A 1994 Chevrolet with a white leather interior. We can confirm the latter fact accurately because we spoke with the witness, eighty-two year old Harold Johnson. It's possible Roy never took Ed at all; but it's also possible that they weren't in the same car Roy had stolen. Roy might have switched with another abductor."

"Who else could have taken him?" The braided girl asked.

"That poses a difficult question I'm nearly unable to answer; there was one other man in the hospital, Colonel Frank Archer, who had close connections to the boy at the time of the explosion. Lieutenant Jean Havoc, in currently stable condition, alleges that Frank tried taking the boy beforehand and overheard a conversation between both Colonels just before the fire began. Frank or Roy might have then killed Sergeant Kain Fuery, who tried to intervene."

"How did he die?"

"A drug commonly used on death row inmates; I can't explain how either of the men would have had access to a drug so powerful."

"And where is Archer now?"

Martin quickly nodded his head, a brief, thin smile passing on his face. "I'm going to let you listen to the cell phone conversation and think for yourselves. There is presently a team of investigators combing the river if that is any indication as to the man's supposed fate."

Hidel hesitated, and then said, "Creme. Where's Jean Havoc?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"That's an order," Hidel growled. He took a quick, wincing glance at the photographs, clearly seeing the pain in Ed's eyes; he couldn't stop the deadly waves of thoughts in his head, bloody images frothing against a cold wasteland. He hated to think that the world could grow so hard against - against -

Martin couldn't tell if his intentions were valid or not, but he'd been issued an order, and orders always went unbroken. "I sent him to the task station, near interrogation."

* * *

_10:23._

_Needle breaking skin, blood fresh, blood clean - the only thing clean about him, nowadays. Can't keep his thoughts clean, no, not virgin white, not pure like snow. Melt it._

_Stop._

_Substituted for innocent heat; heat he can't ever belong to if he values his life and his job and his dignity. He pushes the syringe down, closes his eyes, all the way, all the way. How dark._

_He sighs, melting into the warmth, sits back against the concrete, the emptiness of the warehouse, cold cement heaven for his feverish flesh. The sky light opens like a page out of a book, one illustrious photograph pressing into his black eyes. A nice full moon, diamonds, precious jewels, twinkling back as though smiling or reminding him of the engagement ring he'll never purchase for a lucky bride._

_-Flick ash in a drain, watch the gray fall into gloom-_

_A scream takes him out of reverie. He looks toward the dank doorway, fingers nimble, and blinks. Wrong Elric, he wonders dreamily, turning back to the moon. Shadows of dragging. Shadows of prying. Curses and screams. "Colonel! Colonel, help me!" He presses his hands to his ears. Stop yelling, he wants to respond, but his mouth won't move._

_Like an acid-dropping slug crawling along the weather beaten earth._

_"Colonel! Please! No-"_

_Splat._

_Roy looks up to the second floor, from where he lies underneath the rickety metal stairs of the warehouse. Blood drips down, on his face, on his hair, on his clothes, and all he can think is how pretty it looks in the moonlight. He takes a drag on a cigarette, breathes out, smoke on the moonlit clouds, smoke on the heavens, listening to the screams and clatters of the night._

_10:26._

"Let's face it." Roy said into the mouth of the cell phone. The men with the flash lights shouted orders at each other, his car - stolen - resting by the riverside. "You're a psychopath who doesn't care who he hurts, who he kills, so long as he reaches his goal. But there's the flaw in your plan: you didn't count on the fact that I'm a psychopath, too. And no matter how long it takes - no matter who gets in my way - I will find him."

"I'd wish you luck, but we both know there'll be nothing left to find."

"I dare you to prove that." Roy hissed. Tendrils of ghostly fog misted over the water's glassy surface, a mirage that gave way to a darker land. His reflection glared at him, swept into a clamor as the trees dropped silver into the black of his eyes. As soon as he melted he looked ahead at the investigation; silent, sweeping, slow little figures cast in the dull gray of midnight.

The bottom of the river was a deep brown, the trees' creaking bones stretching from the dry snow-covered bank into soft mud. Where the moonlight could not filter in through the nightmare boughs above, the white serum was poisoned by shadow, the water dancing from one end of a spectrum to another.

It was in these dark places that the police searched for Archer's body, and they wouldn't find it, because the man was alive and had Ed. It haunted him to think that a split decision might have let the kid drift in these cold depths, fading softly into the muck, suffocated by a thousand buried years of development. The world, the forest, the creatures of the night, would all flourish around him and mock him for being dead -

But that hadn't happened, not yet. "Prove he's alive," Roy whispered harshly, getting on his knees so that the waters could be more thoroughly checked, "Or finding you will be more painful than you could ever imagine."

Charlie chuckled low, his voice accompanied by the chilling breeze and damp mist. There was no vocal reply, but a shuffling and a movement, a few murmured words in the background and a small shriek of pain that tightened Roy's chest into a knot. "Disgusting. All covered in blood."

Covered in blood? His own or - Riza's? "If you hurt either of them, I'll make you _wish _I was just going to kill you-" He stopped short, his breath catching in a tired whisper. Shaken, terrified sobs ghosted through the phone line, small words interspersed he couldn't understand. It broke his heart. Ed didn't cry easily, and this was just ghastly, making him shiver like the skeletal trees.

"He really is beautiful."

Roy put his hand to the rotted wood rail and watched the water gurgle beneath his feet. He wanted to jump in.

"I'd come up with something poetic to justify the statement, but I'm afraid I can't. It all sounds so generic when you put it into words. I think you'd agree with me. Now, don't get me wrong; I don't have any interest in the boy and my morals forbid it, but-"

"Morals?" Roy scoffed.

"-_Morals _in the loosest sense of the word, but yes. To me, I think he's inspired a darker, less tangible form of lust; if I were an artist, you might say he was my muse."

"You touch him and I'll-"

"Stop it. Your threats are elementary, and you're starting to piss me off. Don't forget how close I am to a certain little thing's throat, Mustang. My plans don't include killing him yet and I'd hate to ruin them just because you like spoiling the fun," He chuckled at that little speech, and the phone buzzed with the sound of a slap and a shriek.

Roy tried to keep his tone steady, but it was getting harder every minute. He didn't know how long he could stand hearing the kid scream, especially when he couldn't control it. At least when he'd hit him - at least when he'd - fuck it. It was the same thing, the angle changed nothing. "What do you mean, you don't want to kill him _yet_? Does the date matter to you?"

"Patience, patience," Charlie said. "It's not personal preference or anything. Hmm." He took a small breath, teetering on the edge of conscious thought, "If given the choice. We're speaking rhetorically, here...your answer means nothing...if given the choice, would you die for him?"

"What do you mean?" Roy wondered aloud, not liking where the conversation was headed. It was irrelevant in itself. Of course he would die for him. He had proved that on countless occasions, taking bullets and knives and flares in the midst of battle.

Charlie sighed impatiently. "If you had one bullet and the opportunity to kill him or yourself, what would you do?"

"Kill us both," Roy said without a second thought.

"One bullet, remember."

"I have alchemy on my side."

"Do you think you'd go to the same place?"

"Of course. One way tickets to hell, don't think I've forgotten what we did."

"Oh, yes. Splendid little tag team in the so-called rebellion. I'll bet the screaming was just awful-"

"Shut up. Don't pretend to know what it was like. You weren't there, and you don't know what it's like to stare a little girl in the face, and she's calling out for her mother, and you don't know what the fuck else to do because you killed her mother ten minutes before that. You don't know what it's like to walk through the sand and find out that it's not rain, it's blood-"

"On the contrary," Charlie said with some difficulty, his breathing quieted, "I was there, and on the contrary, I do know what it's like to kill a girl, and _on the fucking contrary, _I do know what helplessness is and if you play my game the way it's meant to be played, you can too."

"Damn it," Roy interjected firmly, slamming his fist down on the soft wood of the bridge. The water's surface was ringed with small glass shapes for a moment or two. "You know I'd never hurt anyone if I could help it."

"The death toll at the hospital's reached sixty-two," the strange man husked.

Roy ran his fingers through his hair, tearing some raven strands at the root. "I panicked."

"You got scared."

"No - I - yes. Yes, I got scared! I was scared that - that bastard was going to-"

"Tell me!" Charlie demanded, the sound of another pained shriek and the slam of flesh on brick meeting Roy's flinching ears, "Tell me what the fuck this little shit means to you! Tell me or I swear to God I'll kill him now and watch him bleed like that bitch Hawkeye-"

"Don't," Roy pleaded. He shook his head. Alphonse was watching him. Alphonse, with his wide, trembling, silver eyes, that great big goofy grin. He was asking him so many questions. Why did you hurt my brother, Colonel? Why did you ruin his life? _Stop it. _

"No, don't look away from me! Don't pretend to be a victim because you know you're not. Look at her, Ed, tell me if she deserved what she got-"

_"No-" _

Roy cringed as another sharp crack reverberated against his eardrum. "Riza's dead?" He clutched the phone more tightly, a faint breeze rushing against his hair. "Tell me she's not dead!"

"Of course she's dead! I cut her throat, like I'm going to cut his throat if you don't open your goddamn mouth and tell me what the hell he means to you! Is it just infatuation, Roy? A crush? Are you just a casual perverted fuck or is this a case of insanity-"

"You keep your filthy hands off of him-"

"Come on, Mustang, time doesn't grow on trees, you've got three seconds before I have another mess on my hands and another body to hide-"

_Foreign planes soaring overhead_

_Stop it. Stop it all. _

_All this fire is making me choke. _

_Like a dog on a bone that was just too big. _

_"Colonel-" Cough. Cough. _

_"Yes, Fullmetal?" I hope holding his hand doesn't hurt - maybe it does. _

_"If I die, you can't call me short at the funeral-" _

_Snort. "What?" _

_"I mean it." Cough. Cough. "Nothing stupid like, 'Oh, gee, the coffin's too big' or something-"_

_"I suppose you want me to respect you." _

_"Yeah." _

_"Can't do that." _

_Another jet plane, another hot winter. _

_"Why not?" Brow furrows. _

_"Because, you're not dying before me." _

_Choking, gasping, sobbing, pleading, all drying up on the desert winds; I wish I could tell you - damn. _

_Thoughts _

_All _

_Coming_

_To _

_A _

_Close. _

_"I love you."  
_

"He's worth the world to me."

Silence pressed against the earpiece, and Charlie dropped the teen on the hard concrete floor. Soft whimpers came back at him, hollow in misery; Charlie replied with a sick smirk, "Now, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Good night."


	26. Glow

**Eh, I was going to wait, but this chapter sucks generally - so I decided to update again. I think next one's going to have Ed in it, so if that's what your waiting for, then yup. :) **

* * *

Jean threw a hard punch, then another, and another, the dim light bulb casting nightmarish shadows on Ray's bloody face. The detective was sitting in a chair on the other end of the interrogation room, his mouth wide open and his cigarette dangling precariously from his fingertips in awe. "Tell me! What the hell did you sell him? Where'd you get those drugs from?"

Ray spit a great glob of pinkish goo at him, and then muttered, "Go fuck a ni-" Jean hit him in the chest, a satisfying wheezing gasp escaping his lungs. He coughed for a moment or two, licking his cracked and bloody lips, before saying, "It was on tenth street. Mile High Club."

"Don't fuck with me-"

"No, that's the name of the club! I'm not fucking with you, Jean, I'm not straight in the head but I ain't a liar," Ray nodded toward the detective, his eyebrows coming up and down. "Hey, man, you wanna light that up and give me a drag? You don't seem to care none."

The detective blinked and then silently agreed, putting the end of the stick between Ray's lips. The man made a small noise of appreciation, twisting around in the handcuffs tight around his wrists behind him. The rickety chair groaned beneath his weight. "Ah. Thanks, man," he said as the detective lit it up.

"No problem," he responded, flicking the lighter shut and returning to his own chair.

Havoc glared at him. "Got another?"

"Nope. I'm not even supposed to be smoking; last one I had."

"Fuck it. Ray, you might not be able to take this seriously, but I do. Do you have kids?" Havoc turned to the glass in the door, his eyes scanning the very empty and very depressing hallway. Trying this route of psychological guilt probably wouldn't work on the likes of Ray, but it was the most he could think of doing. "The Mile High Club. All right. That's a start. Now what did he say about Ed?"

"Ah, the kid," Ray said slowly. He stared at the floor, not seeming to notice his cancer stick waning away into bright red ash or the smoke curling toward the ceiling. "Yeah, he talked about him quite a bit. Quite a bit. First we thought he was nuts, kept going on and on, but only when he was high. Needless to say it creeped us out after a while. Thought he might hurt the business."

"What did you give him?"

"That's the thing. He went for the hard stuff, and a lot of times, couldn't give it to him. We're on the industrial scale now," he said proudly, beaming. "Me and the old boys - 'cept for Ricky and Tom, they OD'd a couple months apart from each other - got ourselves a deal with some Ishballan guy who's supposed to be in Xing. Never met him. He sends us the machinery, the crates, we provide the labor."

Jean rolled his eyes. "Looks like all of your aspirations turned out for the best, Ray. I'm proud of you."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Should have been a doctor or some shit like that. Anyway, this guy, Mustang, took the usual; we specialize in methamphetamine, dopamine, all kind's of mines. My friend Lars in the Bronx got himself a new toaster and some threads because of Mustang alone. And for some reason - our boss - the Xingese guy - said to push him to the hard stuff. Not him specifically, just that the military dogs were our best customers. Lots of cash and life to ruin."

"How admirable."

"Like you did any better with your life," Ray commented dryly, smashing his cigarette tip underneath the table, "Knocking up some bitch and then running away to Central, the city of dreams. Smart cookie, that's what you are."

"I don't want to hurt you but I'm pretty damn close to it," Jean sighed, forcing himself away from the glass door. "I'm going to give you to the count of three to cut the insults and-"

BAM

The door burst open, the clatter of feet on tile. Jean was pushed roughly back against the wall, and he realized with the cold pit of agony that Hidel had a gun in his hand, and that gun was pointed directly at Ray.

"What the hell is going on here?" The detective asked, rising quickly in his chair. He shrunk back as the general's glare met him straight between the eyes.

"Get out of here," Hidel ordered, pressing the gun against Ray's rib cage. Both men's chests were heaving with lack of oxygen, fear, distrust. The detective hesitated, attention darting from Ray to Jean and back again. "Go!" The detective scampered out the door, shutting it hard.

Jean summoned his courage, the general's eyes resting on his cowering form, "Sir - I can explain-"

"Who the hell are you? What's going on?" Hidel asked Ray.

Ray shrugged. "Just your friendly neighborhood pothead, I guess. And that over there," He pointed groggily at Havoc, who shook his head as if to convey what an idiot his former friend was, "Is my old buddy. Oh, yeah. Loads of fun we used to have. Just asked me about - bout some kid is all. Why is that, Jean? Why-"

Jean barely heard the sound of a gunshot before he had sunk back against the wall, watching as the man's body fell, lifeless, to the ground. "S-sir-"

Ray was spread eagle on the tile floor, a red bullet hole resting dead center in his forehead. A smirk was plastered eternally on his face.

Hidel turned to face Havoc, seemingly unaware of the horror that had gripped his subordinate. "Listen to me and listen to me good. There are two reasons, and two reasons only, that I'm speaking to you right now. Firstly, you've been promoted to Colonel in the absence of several of my subordinates, congratulations, you must be proud; secondly, a boy's life is in danger and you're jeapordizing the safety net I've worked so hard to create."

* * *

Jean kept to the edge of the corridor, a dark blue light flickering on the walls from many candle lamps. A chorus of scratches and roars echoed around the interior of the next rooms, claws on metal, an occasional hiss, some deep tone shouting unintelligible words and commands; blood lust trickled between the syllables. "What are they?" He whispered in the cloaked darkness, his attention on his footsteps, his fingers and their nervous thumbing of the lanyard and plastic ID tag.

General Hidel didn't flinch, keeping his back turned away. "Chimeras," He muttered, "Biological defense system. Three hundred of them in steel cages. You see these doors?" He pointed at the wall, and the hairline cracks that revealed hard entrances. "Try breaking in here, you'll be torn to shreds, nothing left of you."

Jean sobered at that particular statement, finding the place miserable and full of lament. Whatever they were, they were creatures of untapped violence, and so neglected that the very walls they lived in shifted with starvation. It were as though they were half invisible, made of water, the fine steel dripping under the glare of shadow. At any moment they would break open.

Hidel stopped at the end of the corridor at a dark door with a single pane of rectangular glass in the top, in perfect parallel with the man's brown twitching eyes. He didn't face Havoc, but typed in a number on the weathered keys of a small calculator-like device. A sequence of eleven, followed by a sequence of twelve. The keypad slid back into the wall, and a computerized voice asked for auditory identification.

"Sir?"

"There are only three people technically allowed in this room, Lieutenant," Hidel responded before swallowing a grave lump. He clasped his hands before him, watching a tiny red light blink on and off in the confines of the safety glass in the door. "The Fuhrer. The Fullmetal Alchemist. And myself, General Harry Hidel."

Something large clicked inside the room. "Access granted."

Jean listened to the shift of heavy machinery and the ting of entrance, wearily watching Hidel, and wondering what in the world they had all gotten themselves into. Some part of him was on edge, wary of Ray's unfathomable death just a few minutes before. Strangely he was apathetic about it; more curious than horrified. Maybe he was victim number two. He scanned Hidel's body, taking note of his gun, his strength, his age. He could take him in a fight if necessary, but that wasn't a preferable option. He'd have to make a run for it.

The door opened with a click swish, and a dull red light permeated his senses. He sucked in a breath, detecting the familiar haunting sensation Edward had often talked about; a coiling sickness wrapped itself about his insides, squeezing the oxygen from his body. Three hour glass shapes as thick as Roman columns and as high as the ceiling rested in the center of the room, a dark red liquid simmering hot within. The glass containers seemed to glow with an inner radiance, unexplained alchemical charge and the simple shine of the living dead.

"This is..." Havoc took a step forward, only to be held back by the General's arm. He stopped and looked at the ground, and was shocked back into gaping. A silver-blue transmutation circle wound around the walls and the floor and the ceiling, shimmering in the dark of the unlit room. It seemed to lock the containers in place. "Is this what I think it is, sir?"

"You think correctly." Hidel put down his arm and took a few steps forward, clasping both hands solidly behind his back. He looked up at the top of the great vials with numb, resolute sadness.

Jean trembled a bit. The knowledge of where he was, where he stood, what resided in the darkness hadn't yet hit him fully. He glared deep into the abyss of red liquid, and tried to find the faces that Edward so often saw; but there was nothing, just a stray bubble, just the hum of machines beneath his feet, just the general's sunken face outlined in crimson. "Why did you take me here?"

"Because you need to know the truth. You need to know why I'm as conflicted about saving that boy's life as the rest of them."

"This wasn't his fault."

"On the contrary," Hidel searched the dark liquid, as if he could see the phantom ghosts himself. "It was."

Jean gasped, his eyes widening. He rushed forward, grabbing the general's sleeve and realizing it was too thick to tear. Anger spread like a venom in his veins. "You son of a - how can you say that? They forced him to do those things. If he hadn't, his brother would have been killed!" He stole a glance at the glass, the thickness of the liquefied Philosopher's Stones. The general paid him no mind. It was as though the man was quite accustomed to reactions such as his, and already impervious to emotion itself. Tears brimming painfully, Jean let him go. "What happened?"

"Exactly what he told you. Take into account that approximately one thousand lives were put into each of these fuckers. The Ishballans were told they were being sent to a safety zone for refugees, civilians that had nothing to do with the conflict. A high school at the end of the city was taken over and the gymnasium was painted with a transmutation circle. They waited outside, we crowded them in, completely ignorant."

"And...and what did Ed have to do with it?"

"Everything. He was the only one who could understand the transmutation circle to start with - test runs at lab five revealed nothing but weak stones that could power a few machine guns if you were lucky, but he figured out how to amplify it. An agreement of confidentiality was reached by the very top of the brass, and soldiers were posted everywhere within a three mile radius of the school. We used bombings to distract the opposition and Ed was chosen for the transmutation, seeing as he was the only one who could comprehend it."

"Why would he go through with a transmutation? How could he have...?"

"The military falsified accounts that they had killed his brother." Hidel swallowed, his eyes closing. "I suppose they must have wanted to break him, but all it did was piss him off in the long run. They drugged him, beat him, threatened to burn everyone in the room alive. Must have figured it'd be less painful if he transmuted them, so that's what he did. Later he told me he hoped he could have stolen the stones and used them against the military, but he was in the hospital at the time."

"Hospital?"

"They tested the stones on him and his brother first, to make sure they worked. Needless to say, they did, and by that time Mustang stepped in as well as myself. Despite the information in his head, no one could bring themselves to kill him. They decided to let the matter lie," he trailed off with a sickened expression. "It was just awful what they made him do, but the fact of the matter is that he did it."

Jean tried to come to grips with the words spoken, but found them as alien and dark as the room itself. "Why are you telling me this?" His gut clenched uncomfortably. Edward was not a monster; anything but. When he looked in the glass he saw Ed's face, his golden brown eyes and the curtain of fair hair that fell down his shoulders. He saw fear and anger and hurt, but not evil. "So that I give up looking for him?"

"No." Hidel replied. "I'm telling you this so you have fuel for your fire."

"What are you talking about?"

Hidel sighed, the bags under his eyes deepening as he turned to face the blond man. "He is not an innocent child. He's seen far too much, has done far too much. At his hand, even if his intentions were noble, over three thousand lives have been lost. And that knowledge might just save his life. Think about it. Half the city already thinks this is the fault of a terrorist; maybe correctly, maybe incorrectly. Even if it wasn't a rebel but Mustang that abducted him, he would try to get that information out of him to sell to enemy states. And that information, in the military's eyes, would mean certain enemies gaining the knowledge to make their own stone."

Jean shook his head. "I can't. I know what you want me to say to investigations, but they'll only brand him an enemy of the state. They'll kill him, they won't try to save him." He could see it clearly. The higher ups turning the story around to suit their own means. Telling the world Ed was a criminal and watching the bloodbath that ensued. It was all too easy to picture a quick, silent death, and an unmarked grave.

"But it's the only chance you have to set things right. At the very least, you'll have to use their tools to find him first. Public alerts are only going to aid you. You don't have any other choice."

"You want me to play detective...find him before the military? Fucking insane. It'll never work!"

"Again." Hidel got closer to his face. "It's the only choice you have. More than six hours have elapsed since the initial abduction. Logic would tell you that six hours is more than enough time to rape, murder, and bury someone. Now are you going to let this boy die or are you going to grow a backbone?"

Jean felt his face flush red. He wasn't a coward. He had undergone painful surgeries, surgeries that left him begging for a mother that didn't give a fuck about him, all so that his sister could breathe another day. He had swept the streets under the drug lords, hiding from cops and selling crack to the crooked ones. He had fought for the right to see his sick child and lost. He had tried to save Ed from the cruel touch of an older man; again, he had failed.

Maybe he was a coward. Maybe he was a coward because he hadn't picked up the damn phone to call Jane in over two years, a coward because the drugs had left him shivering in the cold, the drugs had almost killed his unborn baby and his lover, the drugs had obliterated his mind and made him selfish and weak and a sham. He hadn't protected Ed. If anything, he'd just prolonged his suffering, enough to keep bread on the table and a roof over his head -

That night. In the snow. The blood around a metal bullet, Roy's eyes locked on his, his reasons for pulling the trigger. Had he shot Roy because of what he had done to Ed? Or had the gun told a different story? Before he had left the kid's bedside, he'd showed him a photograph, of a beautiful woman with long hair. Allegedly he'd raped that girl. Raped Karma. And now Karma was coming back for him through another man's eyes. Maybe he had never feared for Ed's life to begin with; he'd feared himself.

He didn't love Ed. Had never shown it. Deep down, there was a warmth, there was a desire, and he wanted Ed with all of his heart and soul; one failure meant you needed to start over, multiple failures meant you needed to stop the bullshit and do something right for a change. He'd be damned if he let Edward die, like he let Karma disappear, like he let his baby disappear.

"I have a fucking backbone," Jean whispered harshly, fists shaking at his side. "You might think I'm a coward and a fool and your last resort, but I'm not. You might think that Edward is just a whore or a psychopath or a stupid brat, but he's not. I'm gonna do whatever it takes to find him, even if I have to kill."

Hidel chuckled. He reached into his military jacket, and pulled out a gun. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, Colonel Havoc." He threw the gun from palm to palm, smirking, ignoring the terrified look that had ghosted over the blond man's face. The red stone bubbled a bit before him, and he laughed at it, thinking, thinking, thinking, the echoing screams of children filling his head.

"General-"

"Don't!" The man warned, shaking and chuckling and crying all at once. "Don't indulge me with that goddamn title. I don't deserve it. Oh, God, Colonel...oh, God..."

"H-Hidel..." Havoc made to go forward, lay a hand on the old man's back, but the general jerked away.

"Don't touch me, Jean. Don't lay a goddamn finger on me."

"You're not in your right mind, sir - come on, come with me, upstairs-"

"Jean." Hidel grabbed Havoc by the shoulders, a tight grip that demanded silence and stillness. He received both. His gray hair appeared a strange blue pink in the darkness. "Listen to me." His voice lowered to a frayed whisper. "I know what you must think of me and I know what you must think of the whole damn situation. Don't let this damn corruption kill another child, Colonel. Don't let it."

Jean looked at him with a mixture of fear and pity. "General..."

Hidel jumped back against the glass, the red water splashing about inside of the containers. He raised the gun to his chin in one deft, calculated movement. Jean's eyes barely had time to widen. He heard a quiet goodbye, the click of a trigger - a loud sound - loud - snow fall - _"HAVOC DON'T YOU DARE DIE ON ME!" _- blood oozing about, splattered on glass, the shell of brain, the shell of moisture, all about the ground...

Jean fell to his knees, his hand over his mouth to silence his gasps of surprise and horror. He bent over double, nausea sliding to the brim of his consciousness. Bright red blood and chunky gore slid about the glass containers, glowing against the liquid stones. The gun had fallen to the floor with a clatter.

"General...oh, God...general..." He sobbed weakly, choking on his own congealing spit and nausea. His focus was entirely glued to Hidel's eyes, blood ringing the edges of the wide sockets. Bright red veins seemed to pop out at him in shock. Little trails of crimson tears melted down his cheeks, making the long trek across mountains of stubble and wrinkle, away into the dark cave of his mouth.

The door opened with a quick swish behind him. He didn't look back. Three pairs of feet clapped against the tiles, three identical gasps meeting his cold ears. Three pairs of eyes swept across the transmutation circle, the stones, the dead general and the sobbing, newly-promoted colonel and pieced the truth together.

Martin ran over to Havoc, putting his old hands on his shoulders. "Did you do this?" He asked gravely, bending close and gesturing for the two privates accompanying him to come forward. They ran to attend to the general's body, took hold of his wrist and counted for vital signs. They shook their heads as they found there were none. The bitter-sweet smell of death wafted across the dark atmosphere.

"No," Jean responded, keeping his gaze on the floor and the chunk of circle. It seemed to take the shape of a smiling, monstrous face; it laughed at him, so he curled his fists and struck it hard. His knuckles cracked as he tried to keep his vomit in his throat. "No, he shot himself. Told me about the stone and then shot himself."

"Did he try to kill you?"

"No...no, told me...told me to find Ed..."

"All right, soldier. Let's get you upstairs. Nothing more to see."


	27. Chain

**This chapter is miserably fucked up. I don't normally say this, but -please- don't be harsh on me when it comes to a critical standpoint. Discretion is advised =D Is it wrong that I was listening to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" for the first part of this chapter? (Just - turn that song on when you read and see if you LOL) =D Yes?**

**....**

**-does the fail dance- Okay. I'll admit it. I fucking love the first part. The rest is kind of bleh. Honestly, with shit like this, I sometimes feel a little weird writing it. I kind of hold myself back before it gets too screwy. I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning writing it lmao. **

**It might be too philosophical and bullshitty for those of you that just want Ed to get raped every two seconds. I think that's next chapter, peeps. XP Oops. Why doesn't this site have spoiler tags? **

* * *

It was ungodly dark. The wire filament inside of its lonely glass bulb rested cold, shaking with a hiss as the walls vibrated from some interior discontent. Blood squelched between the cracks in the floor, slippery and toxic, the scent expanding like poison gas - and yet, in all of the room's isolation, Edward couldn't help but scramble closer to her corpse, couldn't help but try to touch that blood while it was still warm. Did that make him sick? Did that make him scum?

Though after all of the sick _shit _that people had done to him, he expected retribution. After all of the pain, all of the humiliation, the betrayal, the fear, the touches he had never wanted or asked for - his mother had to go and die again. And dear God, it had taken a while; her pulse, trembling beneath his fingertips, had been a butterfly's heartbeat before fading into the spasms of dead flesh. The darkness was cruel, but the fact that he had been left alone in it with nothing but the outline of Riza's bloody lips was crueler.

Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God. Dead. Dead like Alphonse.

He stifled a scream, the sound ripping apart the frail tissues of his throat, twisting dirty fingers through his loose tumbleweed hair. His insides were coarse and bleeding, sticky red crust like lizard skin on his back, cold body completely exposed and naked and dry. "Hawkeye...Hawkeye..." He nudged her with his bare foot, wincing back as her head lolled forward, tongue hanging limply like sandpaper. "Please. They're gone now, you don't have to pretend-"

The moth was back, tickling his toe. It fluttered its wings, barely visible in his darkened pupils, and then went up to crouch on Riza's open crimson eye. Glass like lining rippled and stirred, liquid tears the color of pink dew dampening paper white cheeks. His lip trembled. God, no, he didn't believe she was pretending, but he clung to the hope that she had planned something in advance. Some great escape that would lead to sanctuary for the both of them.

He was going to die here. He was going to die here and there was nothing he could do about it; he couldn't so much as try to wrap his head around the revelation. Archer would fuck him dead, the stranger in the ball cap - Charlie - would do much worse. Havoc was dead, burned and smoking away beneath tons of medical rubble. That left Roy, and after all that the man had done to him and threatened to do to him, he expected very little positive to come of it. Like Archer said, no one was looking for him and no one would save him.

Why would they?

"Please..." He tried nudging her with his foot again, choking on a thick glob of fear, "Please wake up..." He pulled his broken wrist close to his body, breathing slowly, hearing phantom memories of ribs cracking and sharp smacks as his head hit the wall. God, he hadn't known what had hit him at the time, but he'd blacked out and Charlie had been screaming and Roy had been on the other end of the phone and - all he'd been able to do was cry -

And scream and plead and think, _Roy, please help me, he killed Riza, he's going to kill me. Save me, Colonel. _And then he'd remembered that Roy wasn't a Colonel, he was a fucking murderer, a murderer that wanted nothing more than to fall asleep to the sound of his screams and the sight of the moonlight fading above watery clouds.

_"It's okay, it's better this way, nothing can hurt you now-" _

_I _

_Can't_

_Breathe_

_..._

"No..." He sobbed, his sensitive eyes bleeding tears. "No, no, no. _Please _wake up, please..." He wrapped his uninjured arm around her stiff waist, crushing his face against the soft and copper scented cloth of her shirt. A small button cut into his forehead, her last remnants of warmth brushing gently against his skin. "Oh, God..."

A frosty chill danced on his shoulder, spreading cold fever across his flesh. He bent instinctively closer to her body, squeezing his eyes so tightly shut that the world went black, his own cries the only sound besides frail wind. A hollow, deep groan echoed inside the building's shell, machinery or a door slamming or the bowels of hell rumbling. He didn't know, didn't care, didn't - "God damn it..."

"What are you doing?"

He froze, froze like a flower caught in winter, like a thief, red handed, oh dear, how frankly literal. But there was nothing there, no entity, no being, just darkness, pressing in. "Hello?" He asked, voice cracking softly. His eyes wandered the place as he imagined concrete. Walls or floors. Just black cloud now. He smacked a hand down, fingers meeting the sharp sting of ground. "Hello?"

"I've been calling you for days now."

"Excuse me?" Edward moved his hands, scraping them along the ground and feeling for a body, some warmth to match the voice. There was nothing, so he moved his legs, pressing himself so close to the concrete that a steady tingle developed between sweat streaked skin and floor. "Who are you?"

"You can't hear it?" The voice sounded disappointed.

"Hear what? What the fuck are you-" Ed stopped himself, biting his tongue, his mouth slowly filling with a nice bitter copper. He let the blood slide down his throat, water after sand. "No." Monotone. Idiot. There's no one here with you. It's just her. Just her and you. You and her. Convenient. Because that means you're fucking crazy. You want to live? Good.

"Edward, you can't hear it ringing, can you? My call-"

"Shut up!" He pressed his hands so tight against his ears he felt his head might collapse into itself. All blood and guts and filth. "Shut the fuck up! Do you fucking hear me?! Leave me the hell alone! You're dead, god damn it! You're dead!" Boiling tears made a painful trek across his face, eyes vacantly searching for a light to the darkness. Vicious bloody memoirs clawed at the black curtain, a terror screen of nights not slept and days not lived; an empty - empty - grave and his brother's heart found wrapped in tissue paper.

Alphonse was not - _not - _in the room with him, calling his name, no, not Alphonse. Alphonse was dead.

"What the fuck do you want from me?" He screamed at the ceiling, a trickling of dust falling upon his nose. He let out a sob, collapsing to his knees and crying into his hand. The stab wound in his palm still bled, still had tiny pearls of blood leaking from the dark lid, and the little drops fell with tiny splashes on concrete. He'd been crying so hard that now, in the quiet, in the silence, with a spider's footsteps able to be heard bouncing off of the dry walls - he retched, needing to throw up, badly, but there was nothing in his stomach.

Al - no, fuck Al, Al was dead - the _voice_, the hallucination, never sounded again. Never again, but Edward looked up at where he imagined the moon to be, a pale beacon in the sky, and felt a single cool tear melt into the sorry gold of his eyes. There were bells ringing far away in the distance, mournful and crying, ringing once, twice, three times, stopping at four. Four o'clock. Four in the morning.

Bells.

He screamed again, just so that he could hear himself scream, just so that he could feel the muscles of his neck stretch and his lungs quake with a desire for air.

Then the door opened, and without thinking he cowered back against her form, wiping away the tears and watching as shadowy ghosts vanished in a liquid storm of yellow light. "Shut the fuck up, you little bitch," Archer's voice called out, his body a hulking shadow in the doorway. "Someone might hear you and save you. Can't have that, can we?"

Ed didn't reply, clutching at Riza's dead fingers, watching as the color faded as slowly as grass growing. He whimpered, shooting a pleading look at the man, like Archer could just pull out a miracle defibrillator and shock her heart back into that butterfly's beat. God, he felt like such a child; helpless and scared. And mute. Fucking mute.

Like if he spoke roaches or knives or - fuck would come pouring out of his mouth. "What are-" He choked, looking on with horror as darkly dyed thick liquid splattered on the floor, sparkling in the light of the doorway. He remembered how Charlie had ripped his teeth out, and shuddered, recalling the knife and the pain. He spit out the rest, saliva mingling with pink. "What are you doing here?"

"Gotta keep you alive, babe," The man smirked, walking with heavy footsteps toward the shaking boy. Edward waited, avoiding his eyes, pulling his knees against his chest to hide his body. Cold fingertips brushed his forehead, dug into the roots of his dirtied blond hair, raked all the way back to the ends. He shuddered, biting back a scream, as his head was roughly pulled back by a cruel tug of hair. His mouth was wrenched open, his desperate protests going through dead ears; two small tablets were forced to the back of his throat.

"Swallow."

He shook his head, closing his eyes tightly, until that sour dirty hand closed over his mouth and he was reminded of the day before. One look into pitiless, darkened eyes and he knew that he had no choice. Without once tearing away he allowed the pills to go down his throat, seemingly remaining caught there like he was choking. "What was that?"

"Supplements. I'm not putting food in that mouth, fuck that. I'm not risking my hand with those teeth of yours."

"Good to know," Ed glared up at him, defiantly balling his hands into quaking fists. He cringed as his fingernails dug into the wound of his palm, but said nothing, glancing cautiously at the man's crotch and back. The bulge was repulsive. "Very good to know."

Frank gave a little laugh, kneeling on the ground, where he pulled away part of his coat to search the interior pockets. Ed watched him, flicking his tongue in and out, waiting for a moment where he could rip out a tendon or a blinking eyeball. The only obstacles were leaden arms.

"So you two are partners in crime? Romantic." He was rewarded by a quick cuff up the side of his head, but the warm feeling in his gut was well worth it. He smiled in spite of the situation, blood dribbling from his lips. _Hit me again. Break my neck, fucker. I dare you. _

"I guess you could say that." Archer pulled out what looked to be a brand new pair of handcuffs, and then held them up to the dim light in wonder. Ed frowned, his mind automatically working out an alchemical equation to break them, before he realized that spark had gone out a long time ago. "Really, the only thing we have in common is you." The man's nostrils flared. Little more than half a second passed, and then his breathing sped up, more heady and wanting; Ed joined the struggle, suddenly aware of a foreboding shadow and the painful clutch of fingers around his wrists.

Archer pushed him to the ground, Ed's back hitting the concrete, air rushing from his lungs in a haste; he pushed back, but he couldn't hide. His mask had cracked. "No-" Red hot panic flashed through his head, some defensive mechanism working madly. Every touch - intentional or not - forced him to silently scream. "Don't do this to me - not again, please-"

"Relax..." Archer panted, though his eyes were closed and his movements had slowed, the struggle beneath making his blood flow like a summer-heated river. He'd been given a task and the task was priority, but good God. He would have done anything just to melt into that lithe body-

He shook himself, grabbing Ed by the shoulders and throwing him against the wall. Ed went completely still, not even bothering to shield himself with his arms. His wrists were shackled together with a cling of steel, Archer's foul breath playing at his ear. "Just between you and me, when you're alone you're all mine-"

Ed snapped at him with a locked jaw, missing by inches because of feral calculation. "You just wait! He'll fucking kill you!"

"Brilliant!" Archer snarled, making a furious effort to grab him through his twisting struggle, "I'd like to see him try. Oh, God, I'd love to see his face-" He laughed hard and fast, pupils dillating as his head overflowed with dark images, "I can't _wait _to see his face when he finds out what I've done to you!"

Edward shuddered, body going instantly stiff as a dry palm skimmed the inside of his thigh. The tingling edge of adrenaline slowly went back and forth along his spine, but he used it only to catch his breath and watch from barely open eyes. He cursed, foul bile rising in his throat.

"You know," the older man hissed, "I bet he'll be furious. Furious when he finds out I've fucked you..." A chuckle resounded from deep in his throat, muscles taut with longing and guilty sin. After all, only a few hours before he'd locked up his own wife and child to keep them safe from the world and his death. They weren't going to die just because he wanted a slice of Charlie's genius and Edward's innocence. "God, kid. You were a good fuck, too. Lied still and didn't scream-"

"Shut up!" Ed shrieked, feeling as if he were drowning and falling at the same time. He shook, yes, but most of the vibrations racking his heart were angry. Anger born from shame that pillaged every last emotion he had to call his.

"Should I tell him, Fullmetal?" Archer spat the title in distaste, "What a good little slut you've been for me? How you just sat there, _miserable, _while that bitch Hawkeye got her brains fucked out?" He caught Edward's eyes before they turned, shining with mist, and the definite curl of a bitten lip. He grabbed his hair, pulling his head back and forcing him to look at the blonde woman's body. "You see that? That was supposed to be _you, _but apparently you can't even die without dragging someone down with you-"

Ed let out a sob, desperately trying to turn his head away from the bloody sight. An acrid smell filled his nose, his sanity cradled only by the warm touch of another. "No," he cried, the word so ingrained into his conscience that he repeated it, again and again, eyes darting towards the ceiling and the wall and the grimy blood crusted floor. "No!"

"Look at her," Archer whispered in his ear, gripping either side of the blond's head, "Look at her, Ed."

"No..."

"She's dead because of _you. Everyone _is dead because of you."

Edward winced, eyes locked on the moth. He brought his handcuffed fists up to his face, knawing nervously on bleeding knuckles. "That's not true. You bastards killed all of these - these innocent people-" He thought of Morgan Tate and Everett Mildon and the teenaged girl dumped on the highway side and the hospital employees and the sick and the wounded and the-

_(Alphonse)_

-military and the little girl in Ishbal with the ribbon in her hair all cut up and wrapped around her neck and the-

_(Al....)_

-and the man with blond hair who happened to smoke quite a bit, a name like John or Jacob or Jea-

"Wrong. Think about it, Ed - no, don't give me that - this is just the game of life on a smaller, experimental scale. Just a child's war game. You're the child and we're the war. We pulled the trigger but you gave the order to shoot. Think. About. It."

"I never wanted to k-kill anyone..." He bit down on his own hand, drawing ever more brown blood. The military. The military's function. Was to kill. Just like, if you worked at a furniture store. You sold furniture. It was the fucking job. He couldn't control the price tag.

_"Smile, Fullmetal. Make the little girl happy."_

_Fuck off. _

_I wish I could point this thing at you. _

_Too bad Al's watching. _

_"Hand her the teddy bear, too. Shouldn't take children's toys away from them." _

_Do it yourself. _

_Do yourself._

_I don't think I have a self. _

_I don't think I'm anything- _

_Please. _

_Run. _

_(Who am I talking to? Me or the girl?)_

_The girl. _

_I say please._

_She runs. _

_Snap. _

"Edward," Frank whispered, licking at the pool of sweat and blood and tears that ran in the dent of collarbone, "Want to know a secret?"

The teen said nothing, watching the pale ruffling of moth wings.

"Before your brother died-"

The moth twitched.

"I tasted him, got inside of him-"

Went still. Auburn eyes turned to slits.

Frank put a lock of gold hair behind the teen's ear. "He was so much tighter than you - "

It happened in a literal instant. The words had barely been deciphered, and then Ed jerked his head back into a hard chin, blood shooting from Frank's newly split lip. Ed wrapped his fingers around his throat, squeezing hard, screaming, crying, too immersed in the fog of a horror scene to open his eyes. He heard spluttering, choking noises, nearly drowned out by his pulse pounding shrieks of anger.

He straddled the man's larger body, slamming his bound fists into the formerly smirking face, knowing that the blows held no power but a stunned psychopath was better than one who knew when to hit back. Blood ran in thick red streaks along the man's face, skin puffing and bruising while his eyes bulged from their sockets-

He screamed as strong hands gripped his wrists, a dark growl emanating from the rocky form beneath him. He stared into the bottom of merciless depths and then pulled away, biting down on a painful cry as his broken wrist fractured itself further. Archer slapped him hard, his neck twisting itself from the hit; bitter defensive rules and lessons swam murkily through his head.

Pressure points.

Or hell.

Prayers.

Ed scampered backwards towards the opposite wall, stumbling and tripping like a drunk. He panicked. He didn't dare open his eyes and he panicked. He swung his arms, hoping to hit the fucker _somewhere, _and then warmth went cold and struggle became silence, and his knee connected with something that was vaguely, definitely - hard.

* * *

Breda stepped outside, sticky wet like an invisible paint beneath his eyes. He took out a cigarette, looking around Hawkeye's backyard, finding it gave him the creeps. It was mostly empty, and sadly empty. Very large. Good for Hayate, but not for a lonely woman in her early thirties.

He was officially house watching, though he felt like a crypt keeper. Only creeps took women or kids by force - and job experience told him Riza and Ed were long gone.

He paused, watching his cigarette end glow in the eyes of midnight. In the smoke of his own breath, he saw Hayate's leash; Hayate wasn't attached, and tiny teeth had frayed the leash.

Even the dog knew something was wrong.

* * *

Edward pushed through door after damned rusting door, letting them open and close with a bang, his panting breaths stimulating his last reserves of rush. With every step he walked on broken glass or screws or spider shells, because the darkness was thick and his patience was running thin.

The place was huge and built like a maze; there were no windows, and a constant shuffling of rats or worse. Perfect for murder. Not for him. If Archer was following, he was doing a poor job of it. The kick had sent the man crumpling to the floor in agony, but Ed hadn't cared to investigate. As soon as release came in the form of Archer's scream, he had bolted.

"You're ignoring me again, aren't you?"

Edward blinked back hot tears, clutching at his broken wrist and shuffling along. A dreamy haze permeated the broken atmosphere of reality, and he was getting high on it, getting high on his own delusions. Every time he heard his brother's voice - his brother's innocent, soft, trusting voice - he had to grit his teeth to keep from responding.

"So that's how it is?"

"Go away," Ed mumbled, breaking his own rules and turning to look over his shoulder. Only darkness and the shattered bodies of insects trampled beneath his bloody feet. "You're not real-"

"Oh, of course I'm real. Just because you can't see something doesn't mean-"

_"Edward, what's with the long sleeves?" _

_Smile, damn it. "Chilly." _

"-It never existed. You should know that by now, brother."

The blond turned a corner, and stopped. Thick, deadly darkness wrapped itself around him, covering him in a ghost's blanket. Shadows moved in the corridor, seeming to beckon him towards a small light at the end. They were misshapen, ugly, and only if he looked closer did he find they never moved at all. He closed his eyes, detecting the familiar and unfamiliar scent of honey and sunflowers.

Down the hall, he could hear Archer yelling; Charlie's voice accompanying, and then the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw and a splattering and dead flesh ripping.

He ran.

* * *

**I've officially written the ending of the fic, including the epilogue. =D So it's all filling in the blanks from here on out, loves. Next chapter will most likely be short (so another update in one to two days or so?) and full of Ed!torture. Why? Because. =D =D =D =D =D =D =D **


	28. Mother

**1) This is an extremely late chapter. Several months late to be precise. **

**2) Quote's not mine. **

**3) I wish I was finished with this already. That's what she said. **

**4) This chapter is DARK. Like...maybe not as dark as Torean's Mizer, but still pretty damn DARK. Like dark chocolate dark. Mmm. Chocolate. Honestly, I'm the one who wrote it, so my opinion probably won't match yours. Don't know if it'll make you ill or if you'll think it's the equivalent of Super Mario Sunshine. **

**5) LET'S BREATHE SOME SLASHY LIFE INTO THESE WINRY/ED STRICKEN ARCHIVES.  
**

**6) Speaking of Torean, you all need to give her a giant hug!!! She has put up with -so much- bullshit these past six or seven months. She's read draft after draft after draft and corrected shit and reminded me of my goddamn continuity issues on many occasions. (Grrr! Damn you Charlie!!) And she's also served as my own personal cheerleader, and for good reason, because I threatened to quit about a dozen times because I'm pathetic. **

**7) This contains a lot of dark themes, a little bit of rape and a little bit of violence. ****  
**

* * *

"And this is the forbidden truth, the unspeakable taboo - that evil is not always repellent but frequently attractive; that it has the power to make of us not simply victims, as nature and accident do, but active accomplices." -Unknown

_

* * *

_

Her name was Margaret Peters, and she had yellow hair. Six days after the girl's eleventh birthday, her mother filed a missing child's report. Balloons still hung on the mailbox when the police arrived. The girl was found--in pieces, of course--inside of a broken freezer at the bottom of the river, two dead carp rotting along with her. Little bastards must have gotten too curious.

Saw an open door and fled to the darkness.

He ran his fingers through pale, dead ash, seemingly warm from an unlit fire that hadn't burned in some time. Darkness surrounded him, warmed him as darkness alone could. His mind, clouded with the debris of sensation, mentality, and an investigator's calm, dwelt in two separate dimensions, two universes that collided in ephemeral sweep. He closed his eyes as his wandering touch grasped at a curling, dry purse string, half-buried in ashes.

_"Mommy, why doesn't yellow show up as well as blue?" _

The child's purse was mostly burned, and the color had all but faded in shades of black and gray. He remembered Hughes' collection of photographs--not of family life, but of work life. Margaret's tawdry pink bag, plastic make-up in the folds. Hard chunks of white stained the purse's interior, at present; Edward only faintly identified the shape of a child-safe lipstick tube.

_"Why does it matter how well they show, darling?"_

_Mother read. He looked and looked at white paper, pastel crayons littering the bedspread. His golden eyes scanned the paper. No shapes appeared; yellow pressed down, faint light receding into blank, but no beauty there._

This room--this light at the end of the tunnel, the only place where those noises of terror and fear and violence and anger could not destroy--was a furnace. Rusty tears ran in lines throughout the interior, crawling in the dust and the ash and along the subtle gas piping underneath the steel mesh of floor. It was disturbing to think that he felt safer in this goddamn _crematorium _rather than the chill outside. It was a goddamn death trap; the purse was Margaret's, memory's inspiration. And he knew that she was not the only victim whose spirit floated inside of these walls.

There were others. Maybe his insanity was slipping through his fingers. But he felt them, all over him, dead lies that cried in the darkness. We are not free, they said. More than thirteen and we are not free.

Maybe he was all pale ghost himself; already dead, dwelling in that singular dimension of darkness, watching his life split itself to tatters.

A harsh, loud growl echoed in the walls; he smelled gasoline, felt phantom cries of a dozen victims in his ear. Her legs splintering beneath the teeth of a wicked instrument, blood splattering on a man's flesh. That was not their intended destiny; the scars on Charlie were testament to the fact. He too had smelt death; he too was a victim--

Victims were not victimless--

He did not feel much else. Apathy. Tentative apathy. Hughes' notes had gone into constrictive detail: her throat slashed, legs severed at the knee. A piece of glass shoved in her elbow. Needles in her eyes. They were no longer blue. But those wounds were post-death; Penny could tell from the clotting...

_"You're on fire, mommy." _

_He smiled in the summer breeze, feeling stray heat brush his hair to the side of his face. Trisha smiled, too, turning black as charcoal. Oh, the flames were lovely. Blue and blue at the heart but red and orange as it extended; like raw, primal emotions that chafed mortal flesh too closely. Edward watched her burn. _

_Her eyes disintegrated with a little pop. "Would you like to help?" she __asked, her tone promising, sweet, but with the faintest rasp of corroding lung tissue. "Help kill mommy-"_

_The crayons melted into pools of colored wax. _

"No!" Edward screamed, pressing his hands against his head, squeezing his eyes against the darkness. He could feel the pretty power of red, black, blue. What good was sunlight if it never showed? "I didn't mean to kill you, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

The investigation's unit had never found Peters' legs in that freezer. Like Morgan's eyes, they seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Disgusting charms that the killer might have locked in a safe somewhere, like little ruby jewels that aged into primordial soup. The stuff of life.

Which was fine, because Margaret's casket had been closed anyway.

He closed his eyes again, feeling around, numb to sensation, his chest and lungs trembling. _Show me, _he thought to himself, willing himself to stop fucking breathing long enough to survive another goddamn minute (_they can hear me, they can hear me, they can hear me), _the dying hum of a girl's screams in the walls accelerating his beating heart. _Show me, Margaret. _

"Oh, God."

He felt it. Chunks of brittle, powder black, powder white. He drew his hand to his mouth and tasted acrid waste, decay, imagined boiling dead blood and unconscious memories of the girl in the pink-turned-red dress with the stumps--the fuckers had--

Had what? He shuddered, the grim play unfolding around him. The iron door just beside him had but a single small window at the top, littered with grime. He held his broken hand to his lips. Licked a track of blood from palm to wrist, eyes never leaving that sordid space above the door. Phantom thoughts. They had killed her _here. _In this very room they had killed a twelve year old--and many more, though the girl was the youngest ever found.

Ed thought for a moment. "So that leaves me." Second-youngest. Like coming second in a race. It felt nice being identified, even though he'd lost. Then his blood ran like ice water; that finite, decisive word came up again, and he knew he deserved it--deserved every swing of the ax, every bottle of blood they could extract from him.

He could face them like a victim or a martyr; like a prisoner or a traitor. He felt like all of those things at once. Consequences that delivered him to death, consequences he could not control. The very blood that ran in his veins was the blood of the innocent--not by choice, not by desire, but by futile events. He was a walking, breathing weapon, dangerous in its charms and dark in its deception. So in a reluctant way, he deserved this...

Didn't he?

He reached down into the ash with his uninjured hand, and grasped Margaret's busted, powder bones. So very small. He closed his eyes again. "If you can do it," he whispered to the ghost in the darkness, "I sure as fuck can."

Dim echoes ricocheted in the world outside. A voice climbed on the walls, in the floor, through the murky depths of piping. Sound waves familiar in timbre and pitch. "...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." Heavy sobs, accompanied by the sound of whispered leaves, soothing and sentimental. "I couldn't...I..."

Edward sucked on his wounded palm, licking the bitter blood and dirt from the tear in bone. He lifted his head, not wanting to believe, not wanting to resign himself to hope when he'd just resigned himself to death.

"I - that poor kid...I promised I w-would-"

"You couldn't do anything, Jean. You tried. We all tried."

Those weren't hallucinations. They were real, they had to be, and they were just outside the corridor. Edward earnestly believed this--knew this--and had to be right. "Havoc?" He whispered tentatively, swallowing coarse air. His heart beat inside of his skull, blood pushing and pulsing. "Havoc?" The name came out a pleading whimper, darkly hesitant.

He put his broken hand to his crushed, aching ribs, and crawled limply forward with the other, stumbling in the debris and ash. His breathing shook, eyes trembling gold from within a face stained with blood. The window in the door gleamed, shimmered as if by the light of hidden moon and fire, but he didn't stop moving. Those voices belonged to bodies, living bodies, and he wanted to haunt them.

The voices grew louder.

He recognized Penny's voice--Penny Dale, far off and part of an entirely different world where logic ran rampant. The girl did not know emotion. Penny and Jean were here, in this godforsaken place--oh, he needed to warn them. That's what he was going to _do_. He was going to warn them and tell them to leave, go away--_it's not safe here_--

He pushed against the door, cringing from the weight of exertion; his ribs split into a spasm of pain. He curled into himself, and then tried again, biting his lip to keep from crying out. A cold draft of air hit him in the face, and the voices grew intimidatingly louder. Floor to ceiling, iron door, warm and cold.

"I just wish I knew that he was okay," Jean's voice said, "I've fucked up so much. I can't have some other kid suffering from my fucking stupidity-"

Edward thought that was an odd thing to say. He wanted to scream, shout, exclaim that he wasn't dead, that he was perfectly fine. It was Hawkeye the man should be worrying about. She was trapped in the darkness with those sick fucking perverts and her defenseless, cold body at their disposal--surely, Jean could see that, wherever he was? Surely Jean could see the blood on the floor turning black with age--

He pulled himself to his feet, using the cement wall for support. He could see nothing. The only light came from the ceiling-length furnace he had recently occupied, small flares, like candle light, hidden beneath the iron grate. He didn't want to leave the light. He wanted those little flares to burn him up, burn him slowly--

Or--he would certainly not complain if it killed him in one swift burst. Mustang had tried killing people like that; just exploding their heads. Comical picture. In theory--

"Shit," he groaned, head splitting in two. A thousand thoughts were starting to flower there, dark in root but wandering in completely different tangents. He felt as if he were going completely insane; these ghosts, these unmarked graves in the passages, were starting to kill him.

Blue light slowly filtered in, artificial in its brightness. Edward thought it looked a bit like police light, and started to walk faster, stumble faster. Faster. Don't stop.

"You don't have a family, do you?" Penny asked.

"No, I don't."

Don't ever stop.

"What happened to them? I've heard that - you had a son, at some point. I'm sorry..."

"It's okay."

The light splashed blue and white on the cement walls; a high-pitched, electronic buzz started in his ear, vibrated his stomach, his brain. The agonizing pain in his head intensified, but so did the volume of Havoc's voice, the energy, the echo.

Suddenly he was at a door--an open door, and inside of the room (well, it looked no different really, no different than any of the rooms in this place, this chamber of catacombs)--but there was a computer monitor on the table, hidden slightly by the silhouette of badly combed hair underneath a baseball cap--

Edward stopped short, taking short, shuddering gasps. His lungs refused the air.

"His name was Ash," Havoc murmured on the computer's speakers. A dim, black and white array of images painted the screen. Cheap surveillance cameras with the date in a corner. "Karma picked it out. Told me in a letter, but I burned it. She sent a photo, too. I never burned that."

"I thought we'd lost you for good." Charlie did not move, facing the screen, dark eyes enchanted by the pictures there. His posture implied longing; his attentiveness like calculation, interpretation. Jean sobbed, Charlie stiffened, and then let out a laugh that might have sent the wolves howling.

_He's alive. _

* * *

Edward was like a leaf weighed down by too much water, one that had fallen from the bark of sentient life: one that was nothing, an insignificant part of one whole. Archer let his body fall limp to the floor, and Edward identified the uncomfortable sensation of wet tile on his naked back. Like those days when mother would pull his dripping toddler body from the tub. His mother would cry for him now--at all he'd allowed himself to lose.

For letting the Gate take his limbs, for letting Mustang talk him into service, for letting Mustang touch him. He hadn't, though. He hadn't meant to. He was never going to return to those innocent days of childhood, and could barely remember them; all because he had let himself _trust. _

He could still hear his breath on the mist. Kept his eyes closed, listened to water, pounding sewage in the drains, the steady drip from rusty pipes. He didn't speak.

Passively let himself be moved. Dead anyway, so what was the harm.

"I can't stand to look at you like this...you're so, so beautiful. Do you have any idea what kind of things a man like me could do to someone like you?"

Lucidity and calm. He didn't understand how the man could possibly think that way. Was it a turn-on that he was covered in three or four days' worth of blood and grime? Al's grave and his own sweat, Mustang's dead seed. Maybe. He missed the tender, sick warmth of Mustang deep inside him. Missed that feeling of being _alive _when his pulse beat in his ears; preferred that to hollow emptiness that poisoned his empathy.

Archer pulled the blond's wrists behind his back, caressing the broken bloody carpals with his thumb. Edward felt nothing. "Tired? Me too. Just saw my wife...damn, Ed. You ever get out of this alive--I'm saying _if _here, because personally, I think you're fucked--never, ever get married. They don't stay tight and they don't stay cute. Not worth it. You, however...you're gonna stay pretty forever, in a sense..."

Edward winced, turning his face away from the rancid, alcoholic stench on the other man's breath. Pink stained Archer's teeth, like diluted blood; Ed hated to think from where. Riza's dead lips, maybe. _Don't. _He felt the cold relief of chain tight on his wrists. Archer pushed him against a metal pipe, forcing his hands behind it, and then locked the chain with a small silver key.

"My wife--don't get me wrong, kid. I love her. But she's not as cute as you anymore. And fuck. If she knew about you--if she knew _why _I'm keeping her and the fucking brat in that house--she'd probably cry her little cunt off." Archer laughed slightly, pressing his lips to the teen's soiled blond hair. "Once this is all over, me and her? We're out of here. I'm legally _dead, _after all_." _

"Just..._stop_..."

He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to hear about his impending death any longer than he had to. He didn't want to know about how the man was going to get away with it, he didn't want to know what would happen tomorrow, or the next day--

Archer laughed again, taking the blond's chin hard in his hand. The man's veins were thick with blood, his strength uncanny; bloodshot eyes and red stare. "Charlie's a very nice man, Edward. After this is all over--after you're dead and gone--I get to keep a little piece of you. And I might let you choose, Ed. What do you say to that?" He leaned closer in one fell swoop, smirking into a rough, wet kiss that lingered. Edward choked on his tongue. It tasted like death and metal. And Hawkeye.

He strained against the chains that restrained him; Archer's body trembled closer. His hands were everywhere. Edward wondered if the drug had multiplied the fucker's limbs, because he felt like someone was touching his back while another sunk to rake along his hip and yet another between his legs. Cold tears came to his eyes. Cold, of course, because this was too familiar and his fucking biology wasn't fooled.

His fucking anatomy was telling him to _suck it up_.

"Oh, come on," Archer pretended to whine, "Tell me. What do you want? Tell me there's something you want me to do to you--"

Edward let out a frantic sob, rushing to vocal protest. "You son of a bitch, don't touch me--" Pain exploded in his ribs, his hand, his heart. Damn spell was broken, just like that. Archer's fingers dug into the blond's jaw, drawing blood that seeped under the man's nails.

Edward felt his heartbeat escalate; initial shock was gone, which meant that for the next few hours (or however long they planned his life to continue), he was going to feel everything they'd done. Now he could feel the dark purple bruise that revealed broken ribs, could feel the white bone jutting out of his palm, sticky drying blood and infected shit on the tattered flesh.

"Let me go!"

"You know what, Ed?" Archer asked, ignoring the plea, thrusting immediately into a hard kiss comprised mostly of teeth. His blood crusted jeans felt tighter, his body trembling. "I think I want all that pretty hair on your head. Might just fucking scalp you and take all that_ pretty _hair--" He laughed, louder, mirth spilling over. He kept his hold on Edward's jaw, absently licking at the salt trail of tears on his own hand, and with the other withdrew a jagged knife from his aching trousers.

A dangerous light snapped on in his eyes. "I could start now if you want--"

Edward screamed against his hand, feeling the cold blade of the knife cut a slick line of blood at his forehead. He pulled hard at the chains, hearing nothing but their clank and Archer's hallucinogenic laughter and his own screams that echoed on dripping wet walls. _Al, don't let him do--_

The lights flickered, buzzing quietly, before cold blue lit the small wet room. Ancient rusting shower heads dripped yellowing water on the broken tiles. Thin blood wound through the cracks of tile, where they finally seeped under dark drains. Edward felt sick to his stomach, or would have, if it weren't for the fact that his stomach was already emptied.

Riza's body rested in the center of the room, her blood-red eye sockets staring up at the industrial ceiling lamps that swung with a ghost's breath. Her pale gray flesh crawled with small insects and lice; the same flesh was pulled taut and tight over her naked ribcage. Her chest was a cavity; a soup of organs and tissue that had names in their proper medical definitions, but for the time being could not be separated into categories: red, purple, red, purple, dishwater brown and white.

Intestines made a fine, streamer trail along the floor, some hanging limply from her chest cavity as if they'd crawled out halfway before falling into wet exhaustion. Her legs were broken in several places; Edward remembered photographs of similar victims--always going back to those times, those days, where logic ran his universe and no man could tell him otherwise--and the jagged marks of chainsaw teeth. Pale yellow bone broke out of the flesh, snapped marrow.

Edward stopped there. Closed his eyes. Counted to ten.

_He felt Roy's fingers curled protectively around his head, palm against his ear as if that small amount of bone and flesh could drown out the sound of an air raid. _

_"Count to ten, Fullmetal. Breathe." _

_He was shaking so hard he could barely open his mouth to take in air. They were standing in a trench, seven or eight feet deep. Smoke cloaked them. Bodies surrounded them. Roy held him so tightly he felt his ribs might split. But he breathed, he breathed. _

_He breathed. _

Her arms were gone; they were just _gone. _They'd fucking abandoned her body and left. Archer was laughing again, and kissed Edward's throat lightly, inhaling the scent of young flesh like a drug. His coke. "Havoc'll enjoy seeing that in the morning," he murmured, noticing how wide the boy's eyes had gone, how severely he trembled, how silent his screams.

Like Morgan Tate at the deli.

Edward took a deep, terrified breath, his lungs expanding to capacity; it hurt, it hurt so bad, but he could do nothing else. He couldn't stop shaking. Couldn't think. Could only watch her eye sockets, her fucking eye sockets, staring up at the ceiling like they had something to see--

He watched, slowly, the breath in his lungs rotting into carbon, as a bubble of dead saliva rose in her mouth. Pink lipstick still dotted those lips. Wiry antennae pushed up, up. Followed by a body, small and brown and shining--fucking--

"No!" Edward screamed, vocal chords protesting, splitting under the intensity. His eyes blurred until he couldn't see anything, not the cockroaches, not the maggots eating the slime from her broken bones; he screamed until he could hear nothing else, could see nothing else, could feel nothing else. Not even Frank Archer's hand hard against his lips, not the strong clench of arms around his body--

"It's okay, Ed," Archer soothed, grinning foully, "She feels so good now. She's so warm and wet in here, it's like her own personal fucking sauna--"

"You bastards! You fucking bastards, I'll kill you! Her body's going t-to--"

"Decompose faster? Obviously, you fucking bitch! What the _fuck_ else do you think we're trying to do?"

"You've--you've _destroyed _her--"

"Consider this a preview!" Archer put both of his hands on the teen's throat, squeezing tightly. Edward stared up at him, choking into subdued consciousness. He tried to move his hands, tried to claw at the man's vulture-like fingers, but remembered in renewed helplessness the chains that held him tight against the pipe. "Don't start crying over her, this ending is nothing compared to yours--"

"S-stop--" Edward felt his eyes roll back against his skull. Oxygen, he thought. A small whimpering noise came from his throat. His body withdrew closer to itself, contorting into a smaller, smaller space, a thrashing without his permission. He pulled his knees up to his chest, daring to conceal what was left--the chains rattled and he choked on salt--

"Let him go."

Archer obeyed the bodiless voice, acting as if Edward's flesh had burned him. He stood up, back straightening, shoes squeaking on the blood stained floor. "I didn't hear you coming--"

"Obviously not," the tousled-haired man muttered distastefully, pulling on rubber gloves with a sharp snap. He entered the doorway and closed it hard, eyes wandering over the fingerprint marks on Edward's throat. Tears rolled silently down the boy's face. "If you'd killed him," he joked, his expression dark and borderline, "I would have had to snap your head off." He smiled.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Archer laughed halfheartedly, flinching as Charlie threw him another pair of rubber gloves. He stole a glance at Edward, and found the boy was staring at him, visibly trembling and his eyes more liquid than solid. Judging in their pale innocence. Without a word, he slapped Edward's head against the pole.

Edward laid his head against his knees, rocking steadily forwards, backwards. He tried not to breathe. Nothing was real. Tried not to breathe because nothing was real. There were voices, but those voices were just ghosts, and he was a ghost, too. Part of his own little world.

_"Alphonse...if there's one thing I'm glad for, it's that I never have to see mom die twice." _

_The sun set on a peach-colored hill. Her grave was white.  
_

_Alphonse's eight-year-old face smiled. "No one experiences that, Ed."_

"Yes they do," he felt his lips murmur. Another kick to the head. He bit back a pained scream. His head was splitting into fifty pieces. And all over the ground. How are you? I'm fine. My head is in pieces all over the ground. But other than that, I'm fine. I'm dying soon. That's nice, I'm already dead.

His head was splitting into fifty pieces, and all over the ground. How are you? I'm fine. My head is in pieces all over the ground. But other than that, I'm fine. I'm dying soon. That's nice, I'm already dead. He was fine. His head was in pieces all over the ground. But other than that, sure, he was fine. He was dying soon, which was nice. And you're already dead?

"He's such a dirty slut. My god--can't wait for you to smite this little fucker off the planet for good. Just drain him into fucking nothing. He's got this look in his eyes when he's crying. Like he _knows._"

"Like he knows what?"

"What he does to me."

"Don't be so insipid. The child doesn't know what he's doing; it's the creature inside. Shit. Dropped my knife....thanks. You know, I was talking to Mustang a few minutes ago. _There's_ an example of a man completely under that brat's spell. Won't stop sobbing like a damned child whenever I talk to him."

"The man's addicted to crack and crystal meth. Blame the Xingese for tainting whatever you forced on him..."

"I'm not going to blame the _Xingese. _I blame Lars Johnson."

"Johnson. Piece of work. You gonna kill him?"

Charlie chuckled smoothly. "I don't have time to waste on men of his caliber. My preferences aren't so cut-and-dry. Maybe on my--on our way out of here, I'll have Lao-Lin lace him in formaldehyde."

Edward looked up, stomach churning; Charlie had a case in his hands, and the man opened it up with careful routine. He had done this many times, that was certain. The case was filled with jagged knives and empty glass vials; needles and bottles of crystal clear drugs without labels.

"In my country," Charlie was saying, "We have whores like him. They used to line the streets up and down, especially outside of my electronics shop. Everyone had dark hair, dark skin, so the whores would bleach everything about themselves. Could never get a true Amestrian out there."

"Really?" Archer picked up a knife curiously. The handle was ordinary; the blade was foreboding. It was hooked, like a horseshoe, and possessed frightening looking edges. He licked his lips. "Was there a good demand for them, then?"

"Oh, of course," Charlie replied, "Though to even bother looking for one was trouble. It's not like an Amestrian would come to my country for a job opportunity on the streets. Most of them were abducted--though I don't know for sure. I'm not familiar with such sinful practices as prostitution."

"Edward's not wholly Amestrian, either. Listen to this: kid's fucking eyes? His dad's descended from Xerxes or something."

"No shit?"

It was so casual, Edward almost wanted to throw up. How the two men could talk about him in such a common fashion degraded him. The way they could polish those knives and hold up those vials and say absolutely nothing that indicated threat hurt him like nothing else could; he didn't know how much his life was worth. Probably not much. He was just--he was...

"Think we could get him to fuck the Lieutenant?" Archer whispered, though Edward could hear every word. Charlie snickered. "Seriously. All this warm air--her cunt's gotta be good enough."

"That's sick," Charlie said, though he wasn't at all disgusted.

Edward shook harder. He looked at Riza's body, dripping with warm heat from the shower heads, and shuddered. He could smell her death and her blood, and memories of her smile filtered through the nightmare. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he murmured a quick, hushed no as Archer smiled at him.

"You don't have to pretend, Ed," Archer said, noticing his audience. His whole body went hot. "Kids these days, don't know what they want." He fell to his knees in front of the boy, relishing the image of blond hair as it fell across the teen's half-closed, tearful eyes. He reached around towards Edward's back, feeling along his spine. Edward went rigid. "For me. I promise I won't take your hair--look at her, Ed, her mouth's open already, she _wants _you--"

"You sick fuck! No!"

"I agree with Archer," Charlie countered. "This could be a learning opportunity for you. Haven't you always wanted to fuck someone else, instead of letting them fuck you all the time into the bloody ground--"

"Just leave me alone..."

"Leave him alone, do you hear that?" Archer slapped him across the face. "He's so stupid he doesn't even know the kind of shit he's in--"

"I'm...n-not going to hurt her--"

"Hurt _her_? Hurt her? Ed, look at her!" Archer grabbed Edward by the back of his neck, and forced his head to look at Riza's corpse. "She's nothing, Ed. She's nothing. Come to think of it, you're nothing, not a goddamn thing, but you're still warm and fucking alive--do you have any idea what that means in this place--"

Edward thrashed against the hard grip, trying to touch anything but dead flesh. Archer attempted to force his head down, all of the goddamn struggling making him work a sweat. He laughed out loud, panting hard and fast, pressing himself closer to the teen. Edward let out a breathy sob, fingers clenching behind his back, the chain straining on his wrists. It hurt like hell. He went for his only escape route, back straight against the pipe as close to the floor as possible, but Archer followed and soon two layers of fucking fabric were all that separated him from that dreaded hardness.

"This reminds me of a dream I had couple of years ago," Archer smirked into his hair, his body shifting so very slowly against the teen's, "Used to follow you when you first got your fucking certification. Fucking Mustang. God, I was jealous. I admit it. Every move you made, I--" His body went rigid, all too warm and tingling. "_Fuck, _Elric. That's when those dreams all started."

Edward kept his head against the pipe, face against cool metal and blood. "You're sick."

"No, no I'm not, Mustang's the sick one. He exposed you to that."

Charlie laughed, amused by the dark pleas resonating on sickly wet tile. He held up a long, painful looking needle. "Hold him still." When Edward heard the command he started kicking; Archer held him down with no difficulty, the drug in his veins somehow increasing his strength through great bursts of artificial adrenaline. "Hold him still, Frank!"

"I'm trying, fuck off!"

A bead of sweat dribbled down Charlie's dark forehead as he pressed the needle against Edward's bare throat. Ed cried, tears and sweat mixing and dripping down his face, as he felt the needle push through his flesh. Hot medicine entered his bloodstream, and left him frozen. Charlie pushed the syringe down, until all of the clear liquid had disappeared into invisible blood; he twisted the needle slightly, smiling as fresh red streamed from the wound.

Edward shook his head as the needle was pulled out; kept shaking it over and over again. "What the hell did you do? What the hell did you do?" He cried out.

Archer gasped for air. "Get the stuff." He took Charlie's place behind the water pipe, and held Edward's skull against it firmly. Edward screamed, hoping for somebody, _fucking somebody, _to hear him. But he knew that he was deep underground, in hell, and that there was no way anyone would ever hear him again. He was already dead.

"Please, don't--" He succumbed to a muffled scream as Archer's gloved, bitter hand closed over his mouth. He closed his eyes, blinking against the terrible images that started to appear there; black shapes that took flight on the walls. The water started running red. His mother's shadow appeared. She held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. The shower head broke. It screamed.

He could hear red _screaming, _and red was _everywhere--_

Charlie crept closer, the jagged knife tight in his gloved hand. The man pulled a doctor's mask over his nose and mouth; germs clouded the air in invisible currents. He took Edward's face in his hand, noting the small dimensions that were so familiar. "I hate to do this, I really do." But it was a lie.

Edward felt nothing for a moment. The knife sunk far past the external flesh of his leg, blood shooting out of the wound in dark purple firework. The pain hit him like the first shockwave on the battlefield. He screamed into Archer's hand, body moving of its own volition; it was like his own fucking soul was trying to escape, was trying to abandon him in the darkness, but his physical constraints kept it there like a prison. He wanted to die.

Charlie wiped sweat from his forehead, a small smile hidden under the mask. "Keep him from biting his tongue!" He shouted above the hoarse screams. Blood filtered with water and blood, Riza's blood, in some kind of horrific harmony; it trailed into the drains embedded in tile. They were together; her blood rotting black, his bright, alive--

Edward couldn't help but watch. He couldn't pull his eyes away as Charlie made a deep, dark cut in his arm, elbow to wrist; blood started as a light trickle, and then blanketed his arm, flowing brilliant red on the tile floor. He felt weakness and sickness come over him so suddenly he wanted to fall asleep and never wake up. Two, three screams joined his, though perhaps only imagination--

"His blood's pretty," Archer said in the teen's ear, "It's like fucking--"

Edward never heard. Charlie cut him again, a line symmetrical to the first, and his tears suddenly stopped. His eyes were dry as a desert. He kept screaming, kept moving, but his eyes were closed, and his dark imagination was left to its own devices. Muscle ripped apart, blood seeping against the cold sharp of the knife blade. Its edge was ragged, and tore at him harshly, leaving pale scraps of cut and skin--

Just the steady, hot-cold drip of blood on his arms, trickling across his body. He was fading, deaf to the breathy pants in his ear, deaf to the color red. Archer was sucking on his neck, at the blood there, jerking his hips as far against the boy as remotely possible. He could smell sweat against the clogging stench of blood.

"Edward," a voice murmured behind Charlie. Edward looked; his eyes were sandpaper. Sandpaper, what an odd--Riza, why are you looking at me like that? Stop looking at me! I don't want you! Don't listen to them!

"Yes you do," Riza's voice moved, creaking, her jaw splitting from the corpse's condition. Dead blood trailed from her mouth. The cockroach fled her moving teeth. "You want me so badly, just like you wanted Mustang so badly--you wanted him to fuck you, you little whore--what would your mother think--"

Edward let his head fall against his shoulder. Archer's groans were louder.

Her body was steaming. Acrid, sick smelling clouds of steam that turned the color red, then green, then yellow. His mother was on the wall again. There was a rope around her neck and she was about to kick herself down--_No..._

"He's falling," Archer said with a touch of concern. "Think we should--"

"Not yet. Peters lasted three hours."

"Yeah, but that was just _abnormal_."

Charlie sighed resignedly, withdrawing the blade and glancing at the teen, and then at the empty room the kid was so fixated on. A low, mournful sob came from his throat, and golden eyes closed. Charlie took one of the vials quickly from its casing, and lowered it to the ground, scooping up a sticky trail of water and blood, before capping it. "I wonder what he's seeing."

"Don't know, but it's not what I'm seeing," Archer smirked knowingly. His world was made of diamond dust. Sparkled and glowed. He was never going to get caught, never, ever, ever. Not with a genius like Charlie on his side. Not with the fucking Charleston murderer on his side--nameless creepy bastard, more God than man.

Edward saw more on those walls than he had ever seemed to see in his entire life; it all made a nightmarish kind of sense, felt more real than the grittiest pain. Those shadows took the shape of monsters he could never have imagined. The gate opened up for him, reached out for him, and he saw his brother's body caught in the clutches of the Truth, but then gone, gone, gone. Saw blood run down those walls, thick.

Blood took the shape of human beings, slowly moving. Somehow they weren't as animated as he had thought they might be; they crawled in the blood water, crawled with their long hair dripping with thick red. Wraiths, maybe. And they hated him. They really hated him. He could tell. Maybe it was the screams of pain that clued him in...oh, God. How familiar, those screams.

They crawled, slowly forward, so incomprehensibly slowly--they never stopped but never seemed to start either. A small childlike shape inched towards him, black ribbon contrasting on scarlet. He knew her. Knew Mustang had killed her. Knew Mustang had blown her head off of her shoulders, just let all the blood pool on desert sand. Watched the vultures attack her body as the troops escaped for the mountains.

He wanted to scream apology; wanted to do anything but watch his own blood fuel the apocalypse on the floor, anything but listen to the sick slick tug of knife blade on his skin, the harsh tear of muscle and sinew. Riza raised her head above the floor, her empty red eye sockets staring at him intently. She rested that way for a long while, just staring, staring and silently blaming him for her end.

"Kill me," Riza said at last, broken teeth crunching on the insect bodies crawling in her mouth.

All of the sounds and colors of the world were fusing, forcing themselves through his nervous system in great electrical shock waves, building to a throbbing crescendo in his skull until he heard himself screaming but didn't know if it was in his head or in the air. Afterwards, energy came slowly; he paid so little attention to the jagged knife in Frank Archer's grip that he almost didn't feel it.

He was floating with Margaret Peters now, under the surface of a fragile glass mirror. Life was the color red, spilling down the sewage drains, and death was the color blue. Primary stuff, and no one knew if there was a middle ground: a place where life and death could meet head-on.

Oh, but he knew that place, it was called a battlefield, and the dead rose and the living dropped...

Trembling started in his fingertips, an aching sort of half-death that was both painful and wonderful. He succumbed to it slowly, numb to the perception of stinging hot pain and the slick wet of nothing.

"Paralytic shock?"

"Keep him _still, _damn it."

Forgetting to breathe was easier than it sounded. His head was already empty. Gray drifted into his vision, crowded dark blue and then fully black. He fell completely limp against Archer, giving in and hoping that he was close to dead. The man shifted, pulling him closer, as if afraid to let go. That was his weakness.

He winced as bitter gloved fingers forced themselves in his mouth, and felt nothing as those same fingers brushed his all too sensitive gum line. "Swallow and the pain will leave you."

He obeyed with only a breathy whimper; chunks of powder-gray slid dryly down his throat. It tasted the same as the drugs Archer had given him earlier, but he did not inquire as to their purpose. He hoped that they would let him die in his sleep, but he doubted that either men would be so kind; no.

Charlie left for a moment, and when he did the shower-heads came to fuller life; dead brown rust washed away the thick blood on the floor, before clear, foul smelling water escaped the taps. He took off his rubber glove when he came back.

"What about the temperature?"

"Drug I gave him'll prevent cardiac arrest. He's fine. Preventing infection and fever is more important."

Archer looked doubtful, but did as he was told. Edward held himself so tight he felt his body might rupture into chalk dust. Archer took hold of his left forearm and pulled him hard to where Charlie now stood, smoking a cigarette. His clothes were covered in blood, though there was nothing unusual about his attire in itself...

Edward jumped as he was forced under the spray of lukewarm water. He fell against the grime-stricken tile wall lightly, keeping his eyes closed and his body tightly curled up. No thoughts. No sensation. Just the dim realization of cool relief, of blood dripping down his face and into the drains below. It was like revitalization; that dead experience was over now...he had survived....

No more nooses on the wall.

He was about to fall asleep, drift off into oblivion, when a cruel hand curled around his hair and jerked his head against the wall with an unsavory crack. He didn't look, just cried out briefly and then buried his head in his naked knees, his own uninjured hand against the back of his skull protectively. "Please...stop..."

Charlie took a last puff on his cigarette, and then dropped it on the wet tiles. He turned to his blood-soaked knives, wiping them with a small white cloth.

"This is where the dream got really good," Frank declared quietly, brushing soaked blond bangs from the teen's face. He rubbed his chin in mock thought. Dripping darkened the atmosphere. "I believe it went something like this. You started crying. I took off all of your clothes goddamn slow. Was really relishing this dream, see."

Edward didn't respond; he was rocking again, almost imperceptibly, driving the voice out and all of its implications. Archer's fingertips were on his shoulder, a gentle touch that made him squirm in his frozen physical state. The water went cold, and the man's fingers traveled to his knee. He remembered those gentle touches. The ones no one bothered to remember...the ones that hurt the most...

"And then..." Archer looked at Charlie, wondering if the killer noticed how hard he was breathing. "I think Mustang was there. Yeah, that's it. Mustang was in the room and he was all tied up and begging me not to... And I told him, I said, 'Well, obviously you wanted this or you wouldn't have taken my...' Fucking Mustang and his fucking promotion..." His words started slurring together; the high was building in his gut, and he closed his eyes, dizzied by the irrational sensations and pictures that tickled his brain.

The water was too damn cool, but Edward didn't care. He let himself soak in it, like rainwater, though it tasted like shit and metal. He swallowed rust-water as Archer's lips touched his head, and the man's foul tongue darted out to taste his hair. His body couldn't shrink anymore.

"Please," Archer murmured, one of his hands snaking down between his own legs, where he rubbed at the fabric, "Please...let me..."

"I'm not into voyeurism, but if you insist," Charlie sighed. He sat on the ground, completely emotionless. His eyes were glazed over. He pulled out another cigarette, and blew smoke towards the ceiling.

"No..." Edward mumbled, still not looking at either of them. He couldn't see Archer's hands but his paralysis was fading and movement was coming back to him and he could feel the disgusting bastard all over him. Part of it might have been imagination; part of it might have been insanity. "...Mustang'll kill you, Mustang'll kill you..."

His words died, and their origins were foggy; but if there was one thing he was certain about, it was that Roy was a walking paradox. The man was violently possessive but also violently protective. The thought of someone, anyone, hurting _his _kid sent him batshit insane. Edward thought on that. _That's what he used to call me, that's what got replaced_.

He sucked in a breath; hot flashes assaulted him, memories and consequences. Archer's mouth tasted wet and bitter and just off. The man never let him breathe. He just took all of the scrap innocence he could, ingesting it, almost, snatching whatever he could find. This wasn't any different. His head was forced up by strong hands, and he had no reason to resist. He remembered the knives.

"What, no tears?" Archer snickered, letting his tongue slide briefly past the boy's lips and back. He shuddered, an invisible current pushing him further against the teen, harder and harder until it nearly hurt.

Charlie's jaw moved in contemplation. He was on his third cigarette. His forehead was covered in sweat despite the cooler temperature of the room; he flicked the cigarette ash on the ground. The small orange light went out, and the room was cloaked in shaded darkness. And then he watched, warm steam from the shower drifting lazily over Riza's dead body.

Edward started crying; really, really crying, because everything stung and everything hurt and the goddamn bastard on top of him, breathing on him, running his hands all over him, was just like all of the other goddamn bastards that had ever hurt him. They didn't care, they never cared. They wanted. And that was that.

Archer was kissing him all over. His lips were the same temperature as the water. They touched Edward's back and his fingertips and the back of his neck, his hair heavy and wet. He kept his eyes closed so that he didn't have to see; a muffled sob, and nothing more, escaped him as his own fingers were wrapped lethargically around the man's hard length, dripping with water.

"Touch me, Edward," the man panted into his ear.

Ed did nothing, trembling. "Did you do this to Al?" Fingers in his hair, brushing wet bangs out of his eyes. He must have looked pathetic, a pale, shivering mess that met the wall when Archer's lips were close enough to brush his head as he spoke. That smell.

"More than I'll ever tell you."

Edward froze for a moment, his brother's face in his head; couldn't get it out. Alphonse was innocent. Alphonse was fucking untouchable. He let out a shill scream, body tensing, getting ready to fight, to yell, to run. No one fucking touched Al. But Archer was ready, and Charlie was laughing.

He screamed and kicked and protested as his body was slammed to the floor, water running underneath painful broken ribs; he saw Charlie's cigarette, ash now a dead gray; he saw Charlie's shoes, stained with his blood; he saw Riza's body, turning a mottled shade of green.

The man was on him, moving, sickeningly moving, fingers inside of him with a pressure that made the teen's eyes close against the wet. He went still; his tears met the puddle on the floor, growing in size and turning red. He felt an agonizing tug on his hair, and he was pulled upright, thrust against the wall with a crack of bone. Archer grabbed hold of his waist, and Edward kept his bloody hands against the wall for support, eyes so tightly closed it hurt.

Oh. God.

"No!" He screamed, as if the contortion of muscles and the hard push of adrenaline could stop the torturous force inside of his body. Archer didn't move for a moment, panting, but once the reprieve was over and the shock wore off he did what he wanted--

Edward tried to sink to the ground, to collapse, mouth open in a quiet scream. Where was his mother when he needed her? Oh, dead--

"Yes, Edward--God, yes--oh, your Colonel didn't ruin you at all, you're still so damn--"

Stop, stop, stop, stop.

The thought of this kind of thing...it never used to frighten him. His mother would tell him not to talk to strangers. He had never asked; never known what those strangers did to children when they'd shoved them in a car. Kill them, probably, although a five-year-old's idea of the word "dead" never usually involved the bloody circumstances of murder.

Only once he was older, and twelve-years-old, and in the presence of someone a lot older did he begin to question what the hell that had meant. Mustang was creepy. The military was creepier. Frank Archer was the creepiest. He knew that. Hughes told him to stay away from that; Riza Hawkeye told him to stay away from that, never using the word "sex" and instead using vague vocabulary in an attempt to keep his immature twelve-year-old mind at bay.

Course, it wouldn't happen and it couldn't happen, because he was Edward Elric and the fucking Fullmetal Alchemist and if word got around that people were actively trying to fuck him then he'd never live it down.

Now he wished he'd told.

Edward shook his head, sobbing quietly and falling into swift unconscious spasms. His entire body was tense with sexual movement--it wasn't strong enough for that kind of treatment; he shook with an epileptic intensity, painful, painful pressure and a hint of blood running down his legs. Archer's fingers were bruising his hips, nail shaped marks in his flesh.

He didn't have the energy or the will to scream anymore.

Charlie came to him, softly, hands slipping to the fly of his pants. His breathing was heavy and dark, a mere hint of the angry lust that encircled his eyes. He saw nothing but his own fear, his own denial, his own sin, trapped in the shaking and slow movement the boy slipped into. With every turn of the blond's head, every breathy whimper, he got a little bit more agitated--agitated, that was the word.

He pushed himself past the teen's pretty lips. Yes. Agitated.

Edward knew what to do; his eyes were closed, but he made a soft sound of understanding. He sobbed, every part of him crying for relief and warmth; the hot, sharp pain inside of him did not help. The sudden bitter heat in his mouth was sick, made him want to vomit. But he knew what to do. He knew what to do...

And he did. Did until he tasted salt, and the heat went away, and the world was a deep, dark ocean. The bottom of a lake, or a river. Dark as the freezer bobbing, Margaret inside...

Charlie's knife flashed. A lock of wet hair ripped from his head. "For Jean." And then he looked at it, curiously, and then at Archer, trying desperately to finish (sweat thick and glissening on his red forehead), and smiled. The knife flashed.

Edward went numb; the knife was inside of his belly, in his side, hot blood pooling out. Everything went dark; he was tight; he could not cry; could only sleep. Archer shuddered at the sudden reaction, the sudden tightness, the sudden shock, and then released himself to the spray of shower.

It had gone cold.

* * *

**A couple of people have been asking me this. Okay. Margaret's body was found in the freezer; her legs were NOT found. I mentioned that in the text but it was probably hard to pick up on, which is my fault. I imply that Charlie/Archer cut off her legs with a chainsaw. Her legs and personal items were burned up. That's what Ed was feeling--her purse and her legs. **

**It told him that the bones were Margaret's, because he pieced together that A) Margaret was wearing the purse in a picture that Hughes collected from the mother and B) Her legs were not found on her identified body, so he concludes that the legs must be hers. **

**I'll probably go back and make this clearer when I go to edit it. =) Sorry about that. **


	29. Apath

**Havoc is kind of emotionless in this chapter. Why? He's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, that's why. Wouldn't you? LMAO. Some of you might think that I've changed the writing style to fit his emotionless attitude, but the truth is, I haven't. I'm just boring lately. This is sort of a filler chapter, a transition, if you will. To explain some things. Sorry it's not very interesting. Next one should be more kickass and filled with ... teh tensions. lolz. **

* * *

For a man who claimed to have crippling insomnia, Jean sure felt tired. The puppet strings had been cut. He was left to dangle over some kind of metaphorical precipice, dreading the rocks below. He looked up, expecting to find vultures circling in wait of the kill; looked down, gently down, at the butterscotch-colored tile he hadn't expected to see under his treading feet.

His head was consumed by fire. Pain upon pain, as if he'd been bludgeoned with a spiked flail. All of the little pieces of his skull were trying to put themselves back together, but the brain wasn't working right, so they kind of just arranged themselves according to instinct and the light of the ceiling lamps. They flickered, and he imagined insects, tiny chimeras, chewing the faulty wiring like those dogs behind metal doors.

Pretty, deadly images buzzed in the remains of his neurons: soft, pure, fragile, like dandelion puffs in a heavy rain. It was time to recap, collect all of his memories. Flash after flash they assaulted him, burning him in the ember glow of a mental filament. Angels in the darkness twisted and screamed. Edward crying out for help, any help, as Frank Archer dragged him deeper into an inferno that blistered the very flesh of a concrete building: paradoxical.

He could have killed Roy Mustang, back there; could have done _something_, besides cradling Fuery's head in his lap and dripping wet tears on dead eyes. Would that have changed anything? Either way, Ed's fate would have remained the same. A few cruel last hours belonging to a victim, no one else, and dead weight thrown down the river stream.

His heart might have been erratically beating, pulsating, but it knew things his brain couldn't. And it told him that things were fucked, that everyone was fucked, that all of those close to him had died or disappeared or turned themselves loose to the demons.

That was how life had always been for him, though; just one disaster after another, from the day of his birth. He could almost remember his mother's sobs with a remarkable authenticity: as if she was in the room with him, at that very moment. He remembered holding her hand in the hospital that dreary summer afternoon, years ago, the sweat turning her hair to brittle straw.

_"We have a problem," the tall man in scrubs whispered gently._

Jean sniffed, tasting traces of blood as the mess of snot and serum infiltrated his nasal cavities; his throat burned as he swallowed. It might have been broken, but he was so goddamn used to pain that a little blood didn't bother him anymore. The bullet wound in his chest was cold enough, and his heart still beat; that was good enough for him. He kept walking, following shadows, glaring at bleached white walls and invisible footprints.

_"What do you mean? Where's Jane? Where's the baby?"_

_"She might not make it through the night."_

Those words had destroyed him. She would make it, he recalled, gently closing his eyes against the phantom pains of metallic tools and angry alien faces in the pale darkness of ten-year-old moonshine; he'd just keep giving up his body, his soul, develop an ambivalent love for the child he'd call his sister.

"Colonel, keep up," the man in front of him ordered, not turning to see his face. So much apathy. Alphonse Elric loved more in the hollow shell of armor than this soul could in a vessel of blood. Colonel Wong was not at all comparable to that child.

Jean almost did a double take; the title felt wrongly attached to his name, like he'd stolen Roy Mustang's identity. He didn't want either of them. "I'm sorry. I'm just a little…dazed, that's all." An understatement, considering all he'd been forced through; not a single individual had cared to fill him in on whatever was going on at headquarters. A few ominous glances and whispered panic were all he had to go on: Central, in a nutshell, had gone ballistic, and he had everything and nothing to do with it.

"Fair enough, but I'd advise hiding it. The promotion's just an incentive; you're worth the dust on Fuhrer Hakuro's shoes. He's grappling to find a use for you, any use for you."

"That's very generous of him." Jean was grateful, in a sense. He knew he was in trouble. Had he been involved in this mess a few years ago, during the reign of King Bradley, he would have been shot point blank the moment he stepped into headquarters. Hakuro was by no means a good man, but he knew resources when he saw them. Jean could only wonder what use the Fuhrer could possibly have for someone associated with a supposed terrorist.

Hakuro suspected he was in cohorts with Mustang. Jean couldn't deny evidence--wherever he'd walked, Roy had followed, and the bodies had just lined up at the door. He had nothing to back him up. He couldn't explain his close association with Roy and Edward--couldn't, because questions would lead to more questions, and he would back himself up into a hole. Hakuro believed that he and Ed had been planning something all along, a threat hidden under the guise of protection.

He wanted nothing more than to throw this creep against the wall, bash his brains against the concrete slabs that composed it. How dare the fuckers think Ed had anything to do with the explosion? Edward was a victim. They had _no _idea what that bastard Mustang had done to him, was probably doing to him as the Fuhrer took a leisurely stroll around FBI headquarters. They couldn't imagine the screaming and the bleeding and the denial and the hurt and the shame.

He felt anger roar up in his chest, some paternal instinct that made him shake. But no. He didn't need to add murder to his list of supposed "crimes"--petty, petty word. Was protecting Edward from rape a crime? The military thought so. Oh, he heard the words. 'You should have let Mustang have his way' and such. 'Don't paint Fullmetal as an innocent.' He

deserved

It.

Jean had to hold his tongue, and he held it well. He wouldn't drag out evidence contrary to Hakuro's twisted paranoia--evidence of assault and abuse. He wouldn't fight this. This was what he _wanted_. This was what General Hidel had requested of him before pulling the trigger and splattering his own brains across the philosopher's stone tanks. Find Ed before the military--use their tools to his advantage. Let them think he was just another pawn, and cover up his tracks.

"You're expected to work alongside the investigations unit until the Charleston case can be officially closed. Consider yourself a prisoner with civic duties, nothing more—you will not have a salary, and although you will be allowed home, you will be under constant surveillance. There is no need to use the phone or contact family members."

"I understand," Jean muttered, staring again at the tile floor. This was what he _wanted_; access to the files, access to Edward's brain preserved in paper, those documents scattered in the Charleston case file. He was scared shitless, because he was winging it, playing along, biding for time—waiting, constantly waiting, for someone on the outside to reach him. "My sister's ill, sir. Is it possible that I could call my immediate family?"

"Intermediates will take all calls."

"Yes, sir."

"Your amendment rights have been temporarily revoked for the time being. Everything you say, everything you do, can be held against you without any due process whatsoever. This isn't cruel or unusual; we're simply taking precaution. Follow orders, don't speak, don't complain—just do. I trust that you're trained in investigations, yes?"

"I had a close friend in the unit." He thought of Maes Hughes and his photographs. "And I've had some experience with cross-examinations. I've been ordered to crime scenes various times for crowd and damage control."

"You know Penny Dale, correct? And Martin Crème."

Jean nodded his head, ignoring the fact that Colonel Wong couldn't see him. "They'll assist me, I'm guessing."

"They requested it, the Fuhrer approved. You'll also be assisted by several of Lieutenant Colonel Elric's subordinates—this shouldn't be a difficult job for you. None of the brass is concerned with your lab and field work; so long as you follow the commands given, your life is negotiable."

Negotiable—as in, it was a privilege that could be taken as easily as lunch tokens. Jean digested that thought soberly, contemplating the situation; but all rationale was gone. His head was empty. He just drifted, in and out, wishing desperately for someone to wake him up. He just wished the dream would give him more information, more than a few vague threats cleverly disguised as assistance.

"Fuck you..."

"What was that?"

"I said..." I wish you were dead. "...I really like your shoes, Colonel."

* * *

The road was dead. Only the faint echo of sirens in the distance gave any indication that the city was under lockdown. There were no planes flying--only helicopters, so Roy knew that international travel had been halted. No cars on the streets, so Roy knew that any travel at all was scarcely permitted. Roy preferred it that way. He could walk in the dark shadows and pretend he was any other man—_any _other man, certainly not one that had committed so many crimes in so little time.

He hated to think it, afraid that it might inspire crude desire he wanted to forget; but he really missed Ed. He felt like someone had cut a hole in his heart, then shattered his skull. He could barely breathe, because he knew he was the reason Edward was gone, in such danger. He was in the hands of a figment of imagination, in a sense; a creature of eternity and madness. But that was just it, Charlie the 'angel' had the permission of God, didn't he?

Roy closed his eyes, standing very still. Archer was his main concern. The fucker had been pining for his youngest for four or five years; now that Archer had the kid, it was impossible to say how far things would go, and he didn't want to know.

He held a slightly crumpled scrap of paper in his hands. He had scribbled the address down hours earlier, when Charlie had first given it to him. Since then, he had walked, dodging cops, dodging army tanks—_tanks, _for God's sake—to get to wherever the fuck Charlie wanted him to be. He didn't understand the reasoning behind it, but he didn't dare to ask. Charlie had Ed, and that was all that mattered to him.

The energy of this place frightened him. Although the streets were empty, he felt a crawling hunger beneath the crumbling sidewalk. He was on the borders of the underworld; a place where prostitutes and drug dealers dealt their trade with all of the practiced silence of killers. This was a society he knew well. He'd been accepted into it easily, no questions asked. Even his preferences in sexual partners hadn't bothered them. No. The difficult part was getting _out. _

He checked the address once more, and then found matching rusted numbers on the side of a building just ahead. The place was dank--no other word could describe it. He could smell a fire that had gutted it in the eighties; could see boards over the empty windows. Glass littered the pavement. But a few lights were on, and he could see movement between the boards. The place was occupied.

Again, the thought occurred to him: Why would Charlie want him to go here? Of all places, why some slums on the back-end of Central? But he answered his own question. The place was crawling with immigrants and illegals--people who didn't care about the news and didn't care if you were a fugitive. Besides, it was familiar territory. He knew this place.

He walked up the cracked and broken steps to the building's door. The apartments and houses surrounding looked like monsters in the darkness, hulking shapes with no form or point. One and the same. He knocked on the door, a whisper of tension brushing his neck and cooling the sweat in his hair.

He heard movement; a graceless clatter of what sounded like kitchen pans. Someone started crying. A child, maybe. And then the door opened, and the porch was flooded with light.

The woman who answered his knock looked him over passively--he supposed she was a woman, at least. There was a heavy shawl covering most of her head and body. He could only see her eyes, and they didn't look European. He couldn't say for sure, and the landing was too dark to see properly.

She stepped out of the way without a word, as though expecting him.

* * *

The door opened; a sliver of artificial light fell on tile in the darkness. Jean could smell the bitter sting of hair dye. Penny Dale waited for him, brown locks clinging to her pale neck. "I brought you food." Her voice echoed in the dim surroundings of the police locker room. She held up the large brown bag in her hands. Grease stained the bottom, and Jean detected the subtle traces of spiced vegetables and meat.

"Xingese?" He murmured gently, sitting up and hugging his small blanket closer. No matter what kind of chaos paralyzed his brain, he could always be assured that he'd need food eventually. That was a small comfort. "You have some nice connections. What's even open this late? It's gotta be four or five in the morning."

"Do you remember the street that the butcher owner lived on? The one Ed interrogated a while ago when the prostitute was found. There's all kinds of restaurants on that street--they open very early. When immigrants come to Central, they work hard--probably harder than anyone."

A few minutes later, they both sat on the locker room bench and slurped lo-mein noodles from cardboard boxes. Typical silence eroded worry, eroded confusion. Jean ignored the tremors in his body, thoughts drifting back to Ed, always Ed. A candle snuffed out by the wind--maybe a literal comparison, because the more Mustang had lingered, the dimmer Edward's innocence had become. Jean's fingers shook around the wooden chopstick, but Penny pretended not to notice. Still. Could she read the images in his eyes?

The kid had seemed so solid a day before. Grip slack and cold, frail, but he'd been _there. _After Mustang's breakdown, Jean had assumed that the man had given up whatever delusional claims to the boy he thought he had; those assumptions had cost him Ed and cost many their lives. Why the _fuck _had this happened? Why had Roy Mustang satiated his lonesome, pathetic lust on...

But he didn't want to think about that. Like a child with something broken he ignored the collateral damage of his own actions--he wanted to forget.

Penny cleared her throat, setting her box on the bench next to her. "Riza Hawkeye's been declared missing in action."

Jean froze, a limp noodle hanging from his mouth. He swallowed, afraid to speak, as if that might make the revelation more real. If she was gone, then that meant one of two things: either she had died in the fire, or she shared Edward's fate. "What?"

"I didn't want to worry you. God knows you've been through enough tonight."

Jean felt the flames of grief lick at his body, consuming him. He set his food down on the bench. Suddenly he didn't feel as hungry anymore. "What the hell's happened?" He'd meant for his voice to come out strong, but it was more like a sob. All he could do was stare up at the water stained ceiling and swallow, pretending it was all just a dream.

"She may have died in the fire...but I've contacted some of the witnesses outside the hospital when the explosion happened. A few say they saw a woman with her description running from the building toward the parking lot, five or ten minutes after the blast."

"Roy said nothing about her on the phone," he muttered quietly, trying to make sense of insanity. The text messages had all been of Edward, and Roy never so much as hinted he'd taken Riza as well. Had she escaped, or was there a reason Roy had withheld that he might have abducted her? He cringed. He felt so distant from emotion, it was beginning to scare him a little; he was treating the case like a case, not the possible deaths of those close to him.

Penny sighed, and for the first time Jean noticed the bags under her eyes. Water dribbled down her forehead.

"You dye your hair?"

"Back to the natural color. I'm sick of blonds." She checked her watch, and then set her food down as well. "Come on, I want to show you some things. I think you'll be interested."

* * *

Roy sat on a molding sofa in the middle of a bare living room. There were no electric lights. A few candles and an oil lamp--that was it. The woman had motioned him towards the couch as soon as he'd stepped in the doorway, before offering some odd colored tea. It sat untouched on the floor besides his feet, letting a cold, sweet aroma drift in the dank.

He was too preoccupied by the emptiness of this place, the despair; the exotic smells cloaked by the lingering scent of sickness and death. Distracted, too, by the unnerving green eyes of this woman's child: a small, simple thing of about five or six years, with thick short hair and a plain dress. The girl had been watching him for a half hour now, open mouthed and dead-eyed. Drool was on her chin.

"Excuse me..." He murmured to the hooded woman, when she came in to check on him. Her face betrayed her wary feelings; if she knew him, she said nothing, but there were definitely feelings of fear and regret in her. "Is she okay?" He indicated the girl on the threadbare rug.

The woman looked back and forth between them, ringing her hands. She kept her eyes down. "Gun broke her head."

"What?"

She fidgeted uncomfortably, as if fighting with herself and the words she desperately wanted to say. Even with most of her face covered, or perhaps because of it, Roy saw primal emotions in her eyes that couldn't be described with petty words. "Look." She guided her daughter towards him, and turned the girl's body to face the far wall.

There was a bald patch, as well as an old, deep scar that wound its way across the bottom of the girl's skull. Roy realized that the child's head must have fractured from the force of whatever had hit it; whoever fixed her must have been a skilled doctor. The curious scientist inside wanted to meet him.

However, as he had learned (and as he was still learning, from the woman's weak, careful touch), not all wounds could be fixed by a medicine man's tools. Some needed the treatment only heaven could provide. He'd skip out on that one. He couldn't be fixed. Would never be fixed.

"Bad things, you've done," she whispered, stroking back the girl's hair. "Bad things _he's _done. But not all wrong. Sometimes you let things go on. Sometimes you want speaking, but no one tells. Stay here." She turned to him. "The phone will ring." She glanced down at his pockets, searching for a telling lump. "Answer and listen, but leave me out. I am happy here."

* * *

The locker rooms had been relatively somber, but inside of the main activities branch, things were starting to resemble the dictionary definition of hectic. Phones ringing off the hook, officers flipping through law books and old case files, records, the like. Someone had been hired off the street to help brew coffee. There were no clouds outside of the wall-to-wall mural window, but the dawn appeared gloomy and cold, the moon's transluscent gaze compounding its surreal quality.

"We're going to the laboratory," Penny said, leading Havoc through the mass of police and investigators. "Are you well enough to look at a corpse right now?"

"Frank Archer?" Jean hoped to God they'd found his body. A body meant clues--locations, deoxyribonucleic acids, fossil fibers. As he waded through the long room, he detected not-so-subtle eyes looking him over, brains trying to find any sign of traitoruous intentions. He had no intentions.

"As of yet, no one's found so much as a trace of his body. A search party's combed the river up and down, but nothing's turned up. We've tried contacting his family but his wife and three-year-old son have disappeared. Some are saying Mustang might have had something to do with it--he could have done away with the whole family."

"Mustang's not that thorough," Jean muttered. "He has nothing against Archer's family, just the man himself for messing with Ed. Besides which, he wouldn't kill a child if he could avoid it. I'd like to say I know the man enough to put faith in that statement, but after what he did to Ed...shit. Could they be staying with a relative, or looking for him? I still don't think Roy would touch them."

"No. Melinda Archer is an orphan and the Colonel's been estranged from his family for years. Unfortunately, Mustang's case is similar. He has no living relations--just some brother he hasn't seen for over fifteen years. For all we know, Charles Mustang could be dead. It's impossible to tell where Mustang would feel safe at the moment. Logically he has nowere to hide."

"What did you say?" Jean stopped, blinking fast. Bright finger beams of dawn tore through the dark window panes of the office, illuminating curious eyes.

Penny gave him an incredulous look. "He has nowhere to hide. Crossing the border or suicide is the only option."

"No, the brother."

"Charles Mustang? Yes, they were separated when Roy was fourteen. Their father killed himself."

"And the mother?"

"Died in childbirth."

Jean stared hard at her. The name was familiar, haunting the four corners of his brain, but he couldn't attach it to a person. It was one of those things he had just heard in passing, maybe--a subconscious element that he couldn't recall. Perhaps it had to do with the Charleston murders. The same street where the murders took place--yes, that was it. It had flitted into his subconscious, embedded itself there, and now that he was grasping for straws it came out to appease him.

"Nothing." He walked past her. "It's nothing."

* * *

"Well, I have some good news," Penny said as she tore the pale blue sheet from the stiff corpse on the table. General Hidel lay there, skin stretched white over open eyes. Dried blood caked what was left of his head and jaw--the rest looked like a child's school art project, lumpy and formless. "I've got enough evidence to aquit you of murder."

"Lovely," Jean said through his face mask, adjusting it with plastic-gloved fingers. He hated the smell of latex. It made him more nauseous than the death staring him straight in the face. He almost wanted to wave hello to the man spread naked on the table, as if he were an old friend half-asleep. "How the hell did you do that?"

"No fingerprints on his gun. Besides, Martin got clearance from the Fuhrer in time to see what was going on. He had good reason to believe Hidel wanted to kill _you." _

"I know way too damn much now. Right?"

"Right. But don't let it worry you. Anyone even remotely related to this case knows too much for their own good at this point. If the Fuhrer wanted to execute them now, of all times, half of the military would be depleted. It's safer to keep you around to help."

"And kill me later?" He watched her movements, her dance around the lab. She didn't read labels or bottles--just did as her instincts told her. This was a familiar environment for her, easy and logical and comfortable. "Great. So I've got to mark an execution date on my calendar."

"Don't be so quick to judge. If you find Mustang, you're safe."

"Mustang's not any of my concern." Curiously, he reached out to touch Hidel's arm. He was shocked at the feeling. He'd never really touched a dead body, not like this. The flesh had the dexterity and texture of drying clay, and it was of the same color as well. Underneath the flesh and muscle was a vague, heavy hardness. He pulled away.

She looked at him over her mask. "I know." She glanced out the glass window that separated the lab from the rest of headquarters, and quickly walked over to pull the shades, smiling briefly at an armed gray-uniformed guard who stood by the entrance. It fell away as soon as she turned. "Jean, grab my laptop from on the counter. There are a few things I'd like to talk to you about."

"Sure." He went over to the countertop, and did as she asked. As soon as he opened it, he saw a few programs were already running, including a word processor document entitled 'Grocery List.' "You want me to take you to the store? Can't carry all of those bags yourself?"

"Shut up and move." She pushed him away, and then began typing earnestly. Jean settled in a chair besides her and the general's body--he avoided looking at it, though it was difficult to do, and for some goddamn reason he couldn't stop poking the fucker with gloved fingers. He'd seen too many corpses in the past few hours not to be curious. If he thought about who the man truly was and had been, he would've gotten sick.

"Look," Penny pointed at the screen, typing a final password that allowed her into a police program that dealt with redefining photographs.

Jean nodded. It was a larger, more defined version of the text picture from Martin's cell phone. Edward in the back seat of a car, duct tape over his mouth, cringing away from whoever was trying to touch him. "What about it?" He asked.

"I've been studying these for a while. And though it might be hard for you to believe...someone must have helped Roy take Ed. This is the backseat, and if you see the window here, the car's moving. Besides, I enhanced the image a bit." She clicked the mouse a few times, bringing the program's focus on Ed's eyes. The image blurred for a moment, and then went still in higher definition.

"There's a shadow of a person in the iris here...can you see?"

"Yeah...it's a person...but I can't tell who it is." He thought for a moment. "I don't think it's Mustang, though."

"That's what I thought. I just realized this an hour or so ago. There's also the fact that this isn't the car matching the description of the one Mustang took. The interior lining is different, and the witness himself said that Roy was alone when he stole it."

"Then he must have caught up to Archer, murdered him, and taken his car."

"Archer's car was towed, it was left in the hospital lot. And no other vehicles were stolen."

Jean bit his lip, keeping his eyes glued to the screen and the shadowy figure. "Then you're saying...that this person taking the picture is Colonel Archer? But Mustang said he killed him."

"Exactly. He only said he killed him. But no one's found so much as a bit of Archer's body, and supposedly it was only dumped tonight. He and Archer must be in on this together."

Jean bit his lip harder, drawing blood. He tasted it on his teeth. "So far you've got enough evidence to incrimate Mustang in the murder case. I've read some of the files--witness accounts of blood on Roy's hands on a street downtown, the same night that prostitute victim was found in my bathroom. Military fibers, methamphetamine needles. Alphonse was killed in an area where Roy usually bought drugs. It's almost too much to be logical, don't you think?"

"We've been lucky."

"Or not so lucky. What if...what if all of this isn't what it seems to be?" He rubbed his hands over his face, a headache blossoming in every brain nerve. "I don't know. Something doesn't feel right. Maybe it's the part of me that used to be Roy's friend, but...he's not a killer. Not really."

"He just murdered over sixty people in a...horrific way..."

"I know, but his head's not on straight. I'm saying that he wouldn't be this grotesque about it. He wouldn't chop up little girls or string Alphonse Elric on a concrete wall. He's not a sadist. He's a lost, confused, despicable son of a bitch, but he's not evil." Maybe. "I'll think more on this. There are a few safe spots on the radar--places we ran to when home got rough." Like the river, but that place was sacred to him; didn't want anyone touching it, not anywhere Karma stood. Besides, the police were searching it through and through as it was.

Penny was silent for a moment. "Now I know why Hakuro wants to keep you around for a while."

"Why's that?"

"You don't take things at surface value; unlike me, you value people's hearts." She smiled. "I have to admire that." She turned off the laptop, closing it shut.

"Anyway, that's enough for tonight. Tomorrow, the real work starts. We need to get you some sleep, and in the morning, we're retracing our steps. Find all of the old witnesses, bring them back in--see if they can tell us more about Mustang. In the meantime, I'm going to try to find the other horse."

"Charles." Jean's hands automatically went for a cigarette.

* * *

Jean dreamed he was flying. He was a white dove shooting through dark storm clouds; it was raining, and the water weighted down his wings. He heard a voice inside of the air, and all around it, hypnotically beautiful and ephemeral. Familiar, so he listened. But she wouldn't really respond. Riza kept leaving him, and he tried to chase her down. Tried to chase that bodiless voice that chased him right back.

Sunflowers replaced the raindrops; they kept falling, more and more, until he was pummeled down, down, into the soaked earth. Snow chilled his small bird bones. Bones so tiny they broke themselves. He heard a noise, so turned his head; towering above him was a boy, with sandy-blond hair and green gray eyes.

"So you're confused," Alphonse said, sitting naked in the snow, staring at the dove. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Help me," Jean replied, and he was surprised to find that a voice came from him, even in this form. He felt tears.

"Early tomorrow there'll be a sign, but you won't like it."

"Something's better than nothing. What else can I do? I'm...I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I let you go. That I let you both go."

"Go back to sleep." Alphonse smiled, as if all of that no longer mattered. He'd forgiven them--all of them.

"Oh, God. Don't tell me that. Please, for god's sake. If this is real, then tell me where he is. Tell me, please. Where's Ed?"

"No.

"Early tomorrow there'll be a sign, but you won't like it."

"At least explain..." Jean pleaded.

"Why should I explain? What I say or do doesn't matter anymore. You're the only one left. _You_ need to set it right."

"And what about you?"

"You'll see."

Alphonse was there for a moment and then he was gone; only a depression in the snow indicated he had ever been there. A few sunflower petals lay buried in the drift, and a green-gray moth danced upwards towards the dim clouds raining blood.

He was back in the hospital, back in that damned bed, fire choking his lungs in a smog, a haze, a black charcoal fog, and there was blood against the window and Roy kept bashing a man's face against it until the bones broke and the brain sludged and the spinal cord ruptured and all of the pretty bones slid over the floor and the spinal cord danced around in a flow of blood before Roy's face smashed itself up against the door, angry, and he was--

Jean tried to get up, tried to will his goddamn legs to move, but a leather strap covered his mouth and chains tied him down to the bed and Hakuro was laughing and all of a sudden Roy was there and he was cutting Ed's throat and cutting Ed and fucking Ed, fucking him right there and gasping and Ed was screaming and Jean wanted to kill them all, just end it--

And just like that, one wish was granted, and he had a gun, such a pretty gun, and he aimed it at Roy and Roy (went away) and aimed it at Ed and Ed (went away) and finally aimed it at himself and let his eyes roll up towards the ceiling where they locked on a bloodstain growing and fire licking the wallpaper and he BLEW his fucking brains out but he was still alive, his heart was still beating, damn it, let's try again--

He did, again and again, and soon he couldn't see but the bullets hadn't run out yet and he couldn't _really _feel the pain so what was the harm--pull that trigger, Jean, keep on pulling, pull, fuck your fucking life and pull, Jean don't care, Jane don't care.

Then he woke up in his own bed and the alarm clock was ringing and Penny was standing in the doorway and his sweat had soaked his bedsheets through. He was

(Home.)

* * *

"...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." Jean sobbed into Penny's shoulder. He was still in his bed, in his room, with its familiar white walls and the shades drawn privately across the wide window. Unknowingly to him, she had stayed behind to keep a watch over him during the early morning hours of dawn; now it was nine in the morning, and he had been crying for over an hour. That dream.

That fucking dream. It meant Edward was dead, he was sure of it. For some fucking reason he couldn't explain, Alphonse had come to him to warn him ahead of time; that today, he would find something, something that would push him ahead and forward and...no. No, it couldn't be Ed. For God's sake, not Edward's body. Should he be grateful for such circumstances? Grateful that would find a body as opposed to nothing at all?

"I - that poor kid...I promised I w-would-" Protect him. Love him. Never let him go.

Never let him go.

"You couldn't do anything, Jean. You tried. We all tried."

"I just wish I knew that he was okay," Jean said. "I've fucked up so much. I can't have some other kid suffering from my fucking stupidity." His own child--his own flesh and blood _child--_was gone because of his mistakes. Because of his addictions and his decisions, Karma had taken the kid and left. Given him no choice in the matter, not that he would have ever argued he deserved one. But now Ed, too? Edward, who had lost so much and gained so little.

"You don't have a family, do you?" Penny asked, awkwardly still. Jean could tell from her composure that she had never dealt with emotions before, never dealt with the victims of crimes: not the living ones. Her specialty was death, not those affected by it.

"No, I don't." He was lying. He had a family; but they didn't regard him as family. He was living medicine. Maybe that was why he'd joined the army--he'd die sooner than later, become irrelevant and useless. Maybe once he was dead his mother could love him.

"What happened to them? I've heard that - you had a son, at some point. I'm sorry..."

"It's okay..." He paused for a moment, swallowing salty tears, drinking in the dawn. He pulled his blankets up closer to himself, freezing for reasons he couldn't quite explain. Like God or angels were listening in, and he had to revere them through submission. "His name was Ash," he revealed quietly. He'd never told anyone that.

"Karma picked it out. Told me in a letter, but I burned it. She sent a photo, too. I never burned that." He indicated the bureau--the sock drawer specifically. "You can look if you want. He's...beautiful. But he's older now. A bit older. I don't even remember anymore--can't remember the month he was born, let alone the year."

Penny smiled weakly. "Dates aren't important. What matters is that you remember _him_."

* * *

**Remember, kids: reviews equal longer, faster, better updates! Now review or I will personally come to your house and Edward-Cullen-stalkerize you. **


	30. Lost

**Feedback would be nice because This chapter was a total bitch to write. No, that was not a typo. And it still sucks. And it's left me with a really bad feeling for some reason. o.o I think I've managed to depress myself. **

**Much thanks to Torean. =) She helped a fuckload.  
**

* * *

Jean pressed his hand against his bandaged chest as hard water splashed his body from the shower faucet. Blackening blood stained the gauze in the shape of an eye: threads of fraying plastic composed the eyelashes. He avoided looking at it, as he'd tried not to look at Hidel's corpse in the forensics lab; but like everything in his world, disturbances were difficult to avoid. Like train wrecks or burning hospitals, they captured his attention and wouldn't let it go.

Warm water frosted the shower wall, and the condensing droplets ran down, down, like so many tears. He imagined this was some sort of psychotic connection he and Edward had developed through trust and understanding. That for some ungodly reason, he could sense every bit of horror the kid was going through, if indeed Edward was even alive anymore.

He cringed, dropping the sud-slicked bar of soap in his hand. He didn't bend over to pick it up, just closed his eyes and let the water hit his skin like tiny bullets. As the water got colder, the drops became more painful; ice flecks that pelted, bruised. Edward. He knew he had to be dead. It had already been more than twenty-four hours since the abduction, twenty-four hours of fear and misery and violence.

The wall wouldn't stop crying. Echoes of the sound of spray and running water, mingling together like screams. Telepathy, again, or maybe something more perverse and incredible. Ghosts of yesterday, those poor souls crying out for help even when their physical forms rotted under muck. The part of Jean that accepted Edward and Riza's deaths (for there could be no other part, he dared not hope) questioned how it had been done.

He wondered. Mustang had told investigators several different stories in the hospital. That he'd nearly shot Edward out of fear, but his preferred method of disposing of him might have been drowning. The river was near its crest, given the amount of snowfall, its incessant crumble and melt into the drift. It was plausible. Plausible, and effective; Jean would never see either of them again, in such an outcome.

He looked up at the plain white ceiling, the mist of the shower. He expected to find a moon there, silver on water, deep blue below him. Couldn't breathe because the water forced out the oxygen out of his mouth. Everything was tight and chaotic, and visibility was dimming. Who knew this was how it would end? Under the earth, nearly, invisible to the stars and surrounded by darkness.

* * *

He walked downstairs, ready to find uniformed guards stationed to keep watch over him. Instead, he was greeted by his empty living room: clean, familiar, filled with the yellow-white light of midday. Penny was nowhere to be seen. He went over to the window, peeling back the curtains just enough to see outside. There were three armed soldiers waiting, heads facing the street. At least they'd given him privacy.

That was good enough for him.

Crack. Bottles hitting the floor. He dug through his kitchen pantry, knocking medicines of every color out of the way. There at the back. Full carton. He pulled the cigarettes out like a man desperate for oxygen. A dog barked. A few of the sticks rolled out onto the linoleum tile, under the table, under the counters, places he couldn't see.

He put one to his dry, pale lips, thrusting open a kitchen drawer and digging feverishly for a lighter. When the little tip flared red, he breathed deep, smoke a brief choking smog that blew away any and all thoughts concerning the dead. But the fire.

He choked, a painful, burning sensation crawling throughout his insides, his guts and lungs. He bent over, clutching his throat, coughing out what was left of the smoke, and then threw the goddamn thing in the sink. The rest of the carton followed, and then they were drowning, cold water running over thin paper, turned to mush and then to nothing, brown dust.

Jean turned the faucet handle to the left, and that was that. The fuck was wrong with him? He'd promised himself—he'd promised himself—he'd never smoke one of those fuckers again. So why'd he do it? Had that shower tricked him into thinking all of that grime, all of that blood and smoke, had abandoned him down the drain? Dark sin still stained his conscience, damn it.

Fire had created a monster in him. Roy Mustang was a master of that volcanic art, explosive and dangerous, chasing down his desires until his power engulfed them. Jean thought he had understood, long ago, what it was like to have blood made of poison: to know how to take life, but keep on breathing. That certainty was gone. He faced a creature that killed, but to no one's benefit. The Charleston murderer—Roy, maybe—derived pleasure from bloodletting.

From the kill.

And if all of this madness had taught Jean anything, it was that if he did find Mustang, he would not hesitate to destroy him, reflect all of that fire and transform him into the helpless beast he was. Corner him, beat him bloody and raw, demand that he'd right all of those wrongs. Something precious had been taken from him. One time was enough.

The sound of a fist on wood pulled him away from those mad thoughts, those fantasies of blood between his fingers. Killing Roy Mustang would not bring Riza or Ed back to him. And if there was a heaven, he wouldn't want those angels to look unkindly on him. Not anymore.

He pushed himself away from the sink, and stumbled through the kitchen to the living area where dust circulated the room in silver spectacle. He looked through the peephole of the door, and then frowned, his heart beating apprehensively. Heymans was supposed to be dog sitting, and the whole team (well, what was left of it) knew that Jean was under house arrest.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked as he opened the door, letting in a broad pool of sunlight.

"Did you hear about Riza?" Breda didn't hesitate to step across the threshold, and two of the armed men on Jean's doorstep followed him into the house. The guards went to sit on the sofa, remaining silent as a sort of peace offering that Jean wanted to refuse. Their guns and barely concealed knives glinted in the morning light.

"Yeah, I heard about her." Jean looked down, remembering the conversation with Penny in the locker room. Tremors started up in the pit of his stomach, nervous reactions that reminded him of how hard he was trying to forget. "Missing in action. You haven't heard anything else, have you? I mean, they haven't...found her, right?"

"Not a trace," Breda said quietly, staring at the carpet with his hands deep in his coat pockets. Jean noticed that his shoulders were covered with what looked like dandruff, but on closer inspection he deduced that it was cold snowflakes. The winter weather wasn't being kind to them. He hoped the river didn't freeze over before investigations could find a corpse.

Any corpse. Archer, Riza, Ed; all three of them were supposed to be dead, should be dead, and yet with all of the pandemonium in Central City they hadn't been found. Not a fingernail, a strand of hair. Jean would have given anything to see a lock of gold, even if stained with blood. Still, it might have been a good thing, right? No bodies meant that Alphonse's strange omen might have been false, a grief-stricken man's way of coping.

"Do you have any idea what's going on out there?"

Jean shook his head. Finally, word from the outside world; he hadn't spoken to anyone besides Penny in what felt like weeks. Sleeplessness and a reprieve of haunted dreams could do that to a person. "I've seen nothing but headquarters, my place, the inside of a couple of army vans. Why? Are any civilians getting involved?"

"They have no choice. The military's got this city on lock-down. No trains, no planes, no transit. Whatsoever. They've got two hundred squad cars, fifteen helicopters, and a couple of armed tanks combing this city. Tearing it apart. If it were any other soldier, any other alchemist, this wouldn't be happening." Breda cast a weary eye at the exhausted soldiers on the couch, and then shared a sacred glance with the blond man.

"Edward and Roy aren't just soldiers, aren't just alchemists. Brilliant, yes, but the military doesn't _care_. You know what they did, right?"

"I've had my suspicions. I heard...I heard that you _saw _it. That you actually fucking saw it-"

"Hey, none of that," one of the men on the couch said, sitting up. Jean's ears prickled uncomfortably at the sound of two guns clicking. The bullet wound in his chest throbbed with phantom memory. "Change the subject or get the fuck out."

Breda licked at his lips, not cowering in the slightest. He couldn't hulk his way out of it. The threat was clear, unspoken but honest, and neither of them would risk their lives for the sake of sharing information. "Anyway." He pulled a long strip of leather out of his coat pocket, letting the looped end hang on the floor. "Hayate ran off last night. I don't know why. He just started barking and ran out of the yard."

Jean kept his eyes on the swaying piece of leather, and then ran his fingers through a grazing of blond hair. "Shit. So what are we supposed to do? We can't just go looking for him, not with the military all over the fucking city." He stole a look through the crack of the curtains, and saw another gray uniform edged with gold.

"I think he's looking for Riza. Little fucker never liked me. Godspeed to him. I'd trust him to find his mom before any of these jackass men in blue."

"Hey, I'm friends with one of those jackass men in blue."

"Penny Dale? I know. In fact, she's coming to breakfast with us."

"Us?"

"You need to eat. I'm gonna force you to eat a whole stack of pancakes and like, six gallons of coffee and orange juice. You got that?" he said before Havoc could properly protest. His frown slowly melted into a smile, and he extended his arm in a comforting gesture, meaning for the blond man to take it. "We'll be tailed, yeah, and we're going to Charleston street besides. So it's not gonna be all fun."

Jean reluctantly took the man's arm, and found himself roughly pulled beside him. "Charleston street?"

"Penny's idea. She wanted to talk to a couple of people in that area. After we eat, we're going to head over to Hawkeye's place. You got a problem with that? I mean, you can handle it, right? I just want to see if Hayate ever showed up or not."

* * *

Roy woke to the sound of laundry slopping in a tub, the smell of soap washing away the putrid scent of burning flesh and blood that had been clogging his nostrils since the fire. He watched the woman as she worked, rinsing the clothes and pinning them to a line. Her mutilated daughter was nowhere to be found, but they'd left a few pieces of bread on a saucer next to him.

He watched her for a long while, nibbling at the bread. It was dry, and crumbled in his hand. He didn't ask for butter; he was grateful that they were even feeding him. They had to know who he was, what he'd done, but whatever Charlie had told them, they were going along with it. They had nothing to lose but each other, given the state of their condition. Charlie was good at taking the immaterial.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, politely. It was so surreal, especially juxtaposed with the awful things he had said and done recently. He cringed away from the memories. A beating heart muffled by his own body weight, the hard pull of lust that dragged him deeper and deeper into heat or hell.

"No," she responded, hesitant, not even looking at him. She kept washing and pinning, washing and pinning, glancing at the wall like she expected a clock with ticking hands.

He tried again. "I'm looking for someone important to me. I need your help."

"I cannot." She pursed her lips, wiping her wet hands on her faded long shawl.

"The one who sent me here. The one who wrote this address down for me." He reached into his clothes, and pulled out the piece of notebook paper, spreading it on his dirtied pants. Once the words were legible, he stood and approached her, though she tried to step back, fear crossing her eyes. "Read it. Can you recognize the handwriting? Who is Charlie?"

"You are," she whispered, clutching the edge of the laundry basin, dark hair spilling from the shawl and appearing like black silk in the cold sunlight.

"No, I'm not." He narrowed his eyes, beginning to feel impatient. He grabbed her arm, his whole body taut with frantic energy. He didn't need some foreign bitch playing her games with him; he needed answers, and no one was giving them to him. "My name is Roy Mustang. This man Charlie lied to me. I need you to tell me what you know about him."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, eyes drifting over everything but him. "I only know I am supposed to stay with you," she admitted very quietly.

"Stay with me?" he yelled, accidentally (purposefully) shaking her. She made a protesting sound in her throat, but said nothing, and he was reminded of all of those heartless times when he would shake Ed and get the same damn response. The blond had just stopped fighting in the end; given in to the assaults like they didn't matter. "What does that mean? Answer me."

"Until phone rings, last time," she stuttered, wincing away. "I don't know, I don't know..."

As if on cue, the sound of a ringing telephone emanated from the other room. He backed off, heated gaze leaving the shaking woman where she stood, and went to the old phone, picking it up without hesitation. The woman turned back to her laundry, though much more slowly this time, as if she were listening in. That was fine.

He recognized the cold chill of Charlie's voice; a voice he had hoped to forget. He listened, trying to decipher a location or any hint of an identity. "Hello, Mustang. Are you enjoying the accommodations?"

Accommodations. Should he have felt grateful that the man had blackmailed an immigrant family into hiding him? He didn't want to put them in any danger, especially the little girl. Clearly they had seen traumas, maybe even traumas he himself had taken a part in. "You sick fuck. What do you want with these people? What did you say to them to make them play along with your _stupid_ mindfuck games?"

"Stupid?" Charlie scoffed, and then paused, the sound of slurping liquid coming through the phone line. "I'm disappointed. I'm having a lot of fun, aren't you?" He laughed for a moment or two. Roy got the chills; heartless, mirthless laughter, as if straight from the devil's lips. "There's really nothing you can do. If you go to the military, you'll be shot on sight, so the best thing for you is to lay low for a while. I'm doing this because I care."

"When will you stop caring?" Roy demanded, a bit louder than intended. The woman with her laundry cringed at the sound of his voice. "Why haven't you killed me if all you're going to do is be a pretentious, sadistic bastard every time I get ahold of you? Is that what you're trying to do? Torture me? Make me listen to you while you fuck my kid, when I'm helpless to stop you?"

"Maybe, though let's pretend I'm not that cruel. I have plans. God's not through with you."

Roy raked his fingers through his hair, drawing the cord of the phone so that he could press his back against the wall. "Stop with the God bullshit! I'm tired of it. You know something? I still have a gun out there, I can pull that goddamn trigger any time I want. The only thing that's tying me down is Ed."

"I know, and I'm using that to my advantage. Isn't that sweet? You're both alive because of the other. I keep him alive for your sake, you stay alive for his. Adorable. In the end, you might see things my way. Think of it as a rite of passage. When I kill the two of you, I want you to be together, see, so you're not too lonely in hell."

"Goddamn creep. Touch that kid and you're dead. He's mine to kill." Roy said, licking at his lips. Desperate sweat coated his forehead, dripping down his face and off his chin. He laughed a little, a chuckle that started in his chest and rattled into incoherency. He paced a bit around the room, shooting a glare at the woman when he caught her staring. "See, we're gonna be together in hell, I agree. But not by your filthy fucking hands."

He realized, in a moment, that he didn't fear death; didn't care if he and Edward shared a grave. It was the idea that he had been tricked into a greater plan. _He_ was the greater plan; Edward was his anchor, and they both needed to sink down together, destined to share eternity. Charlie had twisted his goals, made him think he was working towards a future that included Ed in life, when really they had just been spiraling towards demise.

"He's already dying," Charlie said, sounding a little peeved. "I patch him up as good as I can, yes, but every time I cut into this pretty little angel he gets a bit weaker and weaker. I've given him certain substances to keep his vitals under control. But there's nothing I can do."

Roy stayed silent for a moment, thoughts a chaotic thunder. So that was it? Edward was just going to die, no matter if Charlie actually murdered him or not. He cursed, pounding against the side of the wall. His hand sunk into plaster and paint, making a gaping whole, but he ignored the trickle of blood on his knuckles. "What part of 'he's mine' don't you understand? He can't die on me!"

"We all die, Mustang," Charlie chided.

"Not like this." Roy pressed his cheek against the cool wall, his sweat streaking the chipping paint. He looked through the hole in the wall, the darkness within. So miserable. Poverty must have been a bitch, he thought absentmindedly, biting on his tongue to keep from screaming. "Why are you doing this?" he finally grated out.

"Simply put, you're both dead, decaying internally. He's the Angel and you're the Advocate. Remember?"

"Ishbal," Roy said in comprehension. He licked some of the blood off of his knuckles, tasting drywall and pretending it was sand.

The Devil's Advocate. It had been a beautiful kind of story, that time during the war. He had been the devil, dark and deceptive, burning and burning and burning. Edward was the young, brilliant alchemist in the shadows, hiding where he needed, killing when it was least expected. Men trusted him, pitied him, thought he was just a lost pretty thing that needed shelter. Never mind the uniform.

Roy had always puzzled over what those men thought, before the Fullmetal cut their throats in a shower of rubies; thought Ed was the child of some Amestrian general, a prostitute from the camps, a mirage, a fallen angel of sorts. Maybe that's how he got his name, but it never mattered in the end: they were always killed.

"You died a long time ago," Charlie said. "I don't want you to think I'm a cruel man, Mustang, because I'm not. I'm doing God's work. That's all. I'll let you talk to him for a few minutes. Would that satisfy you for another day?" It was an offer of sympathy, nothing else, and Roy was surprised the man could spare it.

Roy nodded his head to an empty room. He swallowed drywall and blood, and took a deep breath as if preparing to take a dive underwater. He was so afraid, but he wasn't going to admit that. If he spoke to Edward, he might have gone completely insane, unless he was already there. He was only certain of one thing. He was achingly, crushingly in love, and that love made him lust for death.

"Put him on," he whispered into the phone, the taste of salt in his mouth. "It's been so long since I've heard him. So long since I've touched him." There were a few muffled sounds of rustling clothing, dripping water or blood. He heard soft breathing, familiar, but pained, and Charlie's voice echoing commands in the background. "Edward?"

Something like a shaky moan. "Roy?"

He smiled, tingling shocks of euphoria spreading throughout his body at the simple sound of that voice in his ear. He touched his own arm, imagining that Edward was in the same room, and that they were close enough to feel each other's heat. The phantom smell of the boy's hair, warm between his fingers. Sweet golden eyes that burned and cried.

"What have they done to you?"

"Where's Havoc?" Ed whispered, breaking off into a couple of sobs. Static muffled repeated words. He was obviously drugged or otherwise disoriented; didn't appear to understand who he was talking to or why. Just as well. "H-hurts so bad."

Roy closed his eyes, just a little more than angry that the boy's first response was to ask for the goddamn lieutenant. He hissed through his teeth, remembering just who possessed him. The scent of cinnamon turned to sex and blood and gunpowder. "Has Archer touched you?" he asked, already aware of the response. His fingers rubbed against each other idly.

Edward let out a sob, but said nothing, drifting into soft cries that told more truth than words ever could.

"I see," Roy responded. He clenched his jaw, lips so close to the phone he was practically kissing the mouthpiece. He bit back all of those vicious words forming in his throat; words that he knew were heartless and wrong and revealed him as the monster he truly was. That beastly desire to kill flared up again, white-hot and intense, and if he didn't keep his cool, it would be directed at Ed. Too late. "Did you like it?"

The teen took a few shaking breaths, scrambling for words. "What?"

"Did you like it when he fucked you?" Roy spat, his voice growing steadily louder. He took a glance at the woman, who had stopped doing her laundry and stared silently into the wash basin. He let her listen, beyond caring. He could have said something else, anything else, but didn't, suddenly out of breath. He felt dizzy; tears pricked his eyes.

It did frighten him. It did scare him. He wanted to reach through the phone and pull Edward to safety, poisoned as it might be. But he was so damn _tired_. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that, I just...I'm scared, Ed. I don't have any idea what they've done to you, I'm on the run, everyone in Central wants to kill me." He choked, the truth spilling past his lips before he could stop it.

The teen cried as he spoke, "I want Havoc."

"I know you do," Roy said, running his hand over the wall, aching to sit down or sob or scream or fight. Anything but stand here, listening to his kid demand another man, another kind of protection. And he couldn't blame him. Didn't want to blame him. "I know you do."

He was lost. In a field of flowers. Red wine. Abstract dimensions. Love and blood are the same color. One invisible. Under God. Only Jean Havoc deserved Edward Elric's attentions, his devotion, his love. A different kind, yes, that of a parental strain; Roy would always hate him for that. But if Edward wanted Havoc, he would get him. Roy would make sure of it.

"They...c-cut..."

Roy's ears prickled. He pressed the phone against his ear, suddenly understanding that Edward had most likely been considerably injured or maimed under Archer and Charlie's ministrations. He didn't know the extent of the damage. "They cut you?"

"No, not me," Ed mumbled in frustration, tears leaking into his tone. "C-cut...off..."

He made to shout, agonized by the thought; mental images of blood and severed appendages. "They cut something off of you?"

"_Cut-off_, Roy...he's...he's a..."

Something hard connected on flesh, and Ed gave a short scream before silence met the earpiece. Roy panicked, all of the breath leaving his body in a quick burst. He could hear his heart beating in his ears. Cut-offs could only mean one thing. "You bastard, what did you do?"

"Some things are better left unsaid, that's all. Good day."

* * *

The sound of clinking porcelain cups and silverware filled the small diner, their use of a silent nature. None of the few occupants spoke much. An older man with white hair sat at the counter, keeping a firm hold on his coffee as if it might take off and leave him as everything else had. Two elderly women huddled in a booth, warm shawls across their bent shoulders. Another man at a table to himself.

Loneliness; Jean couldn't help but feel sorry for them, despite the grave circumstances that surrounded his own life. Widows and widowers, most likely, and none of them seemed to carry a wallet, so pictures of children might have been imaginary. They pulled money straight from their pockets, their faux-silk clutch bags.

It was a reunion of sorts. They shared a beet-red booth in the corner, where they had a good view of blanket gray skies and Charleston Street's grime. Jean sat next to Breda and Falman, packed tight so that he was pressed against the cracked-open window blinds, and Penny Dale and Martin Creme shared the seat across. The three soldiers in charge of tailing Jean once again respected his privacy, and had chosen a booth directly beside them.

They had to have looked odd. A group of tired men and a woman without make-up, her work strewn across the tabletop stained with spilled coffee. Well, not that odd; diners typically weren't high-class fare. It would do.

A heavy set woman approached their table. Her name-tag said 'Eunice' and she carried a small pocket pad with crinkled pages. "What'll you all be having this morning?"

Jean stayed silent, stirring more sugar into his black coffee in the hopes it would liven his features. He still felt like an animated corpse that longed for its grave.

"Order of pancakes, two eggs, three bacon slices," Breda said automatically, handing her the laminated menu in his large hands. He sniffed at the cool atmosphere. Snowflakes tapped the window softly, impressions of ice that melted away before Jean could get a closer look. He'd been staring at them a long time.

Without thinking, just feeling, he pressed his hand up against the glass. Cold, smooth, and slightly damp from the condensation of snow outside. Each flake kissed his hand from behind the glass, hidden behind his own flesh. He wondered, as he always wondered (and perhaps would always wonder) just what Edward Elric might have been doing at that same moment.

"Fried or scrambled?"

Screaming, maybe.

"Scrambled. Could we get another bottle of ketchup, too? This one's empty."

Sleeping, keeping his eyes closed to press out the heat and the cold. You couldn't shake away the feeling of pain or sorrow, but you could pretend it didn't exist for a few minutes. Fool your brain into thinking you're already dead. Oh, yes. Edward could sleep, was sleeping, hair like a net or a sponge, soaking up the river as ice froze against his body, trapping him in place.

"Certainly. And you?" She turned on Jean, her voice suddenly disrupting the monotony of his circling thoughts. He was startled for a moment or two, but finally found his voice, his breath hot against his lips.

"I don't care. Just toast, I guess." He grabbed another packet of sugar, tearing the top off and then shaking more of the granulated shit into his cup. "I'm not real hungry."

Breda rolled his eyes. "Give him the same as me. Kid needs to eat." He clapped Havoc on the back, jarring him ever more, and forced a smile he didn't feel. But that was expected of him; he was always the one, always the one, who would wake up Mustang's team when they were down. Throw your problems away, Heymans has a story to tell.

When everyone had finished ordering breakfast, Eunice smiled and took their menus, and then shuffled away. Jean was glad. Now they could finally do what they'd come to do: talk. Still, at this point, he would have much rather kept on staring out the window, watching the show of people crowding the streets as uniformed men prodded their clothing.

"They're not giving up, are they?" Jean asked, watching as a man argued with an armed officer. It was a dispute about where the man could park his car, or something. His regular spot was taken up by an army tank, green and heavy and domineering. "What is this?"

"Civil defense emergency," Breda said, taking a drink of his coffee. Like Jean, he took his black, and without any sugar at all. "The military's gone mad. It's like Roy Mustang took the stone with him. That's how fucking panicked they are. He might as well have taken it, though."

"Edward is the only one in the whole Alchemist Assembly that could comprehend and perform that transmutation." Falman rubbed his chin, staring at the tabletop. He drank nothing. If it weren't for the fact that he could speak and walk, Jean imagined he might have been a robot with a human shell; the man never ate, slept, or breathed as far as he knew.

"Seriously?" Penny wondered aloud. "How is that possible?"

"Something to do with how young he was. Only someone fresh from the Gate—heaven—wherever the fuck we come from when we're born—can do it, supposedly. I don't know. I don't know much about alchemy," Falman admitted. "But you can't just pick up any kid and ask them to do advanced human transmutation. Edward was a goddamn genius."

"_Is_ a goddamn genius," Breda corrected, draining the rest of his cup. "Anyway, that's the whole point. The army's worried that if Roy sold him to the Drachmans, our country would be fucked. Sideways. We're being labeled, they're being labeled. All of these empires are joining up against us but the civilians are left in the dark."

"I've heard," Penny pressed her acrylic-tipped fingers to her lips, pondering in female austerity. "They're calling themselves the Allied Powers. Drachma and Xing, and what's left of Ishbal."

"That's what all of this is about?" Jean had always suspected that Hidel had a reason for showing him the underground room where the philosopher's stones resided in dark melancholy. But he hadn't known what to do with the information itself. It proved what he had known all along—that Edward had transmuted hundreds, if not thousands of people against his will—but he couldn't use it to his advantage. If anything it was a disadvantage, right?

Those damn soldiers, tailing him, watching him, ready to pull the trigger.

"General Hidel wanted you to find out the truth for yourself," Creme whispered, keeping a weary eye on the soldiers at the booth beside them in case they stepped out of bounds in the conversation. One of them was apparently disinterested entirely; he was on his cell phone. "He knew something, and I don't know what that something is, but I think he felt...guilty. Guilty for reasons I can't understand."

"He was one of the men that volunteered Edward for that transmutation," Jean said, eyebrows furrowing as he tried to comprehend what the police chief was implying. "Of course he'd feel guilty. Do you have any idea what they did to him?"

"Think on a deeper level, here. A third party. What if the General was working against the State all along? And if not against it, then with another organization, one that wouldn't bode well if the State ever got wind of it. Perhaps his suicide wasn't just a guilty man's last course of apology—it might have been a desperate attempt to escape them."

"He did take me there illegally, don't forget," Jean argued.

"I know, and why would he? Why sacrifice his life to save a sixteen year old boy? There are bigger things here, things that we can't see, but they're right in front of us and they're screaming for our attention."

Like ghosts, Jean thought but didn't say. He supposed that Creme was making sense. It was clear to him that Creme and Penny had been discussing this without him, and he was oddly grateful for that. They were the experts; he was just a one-trick pony that happened to know how to hold a gun and fall in love with all the wrong types of people.

He laughed bitterly, murky images filling his brain. Edward on his couch, sleeping peacefully, blond hair white in the moonlight; Riza's sweet, soft lips against his, a plea for sanity he hadn't expected; watching comedies with Ed late into the night; those car rides to and from work (_I wish I'd told you I loved you); _the nightmare that resulted in tears and curses and a bottle of open Advil—

"What did the Xingese have to do with Ishbal?" he asked suddenly, remembering, remembering, vague images and places and things. A lotus flower, spiced food in a damp locker room, Edward's scrambled and foreign words that night in the living room. "Tell me."

Their faces were blank. Penny shrugged, for once at a loss when it came to information; Martin looked away, pulling absentmindedly at his mustache; Breda reached for his cup, only to find that it was empty. Only Falman looked in the least bit suspiciously perceptive, his jaw moving a bit with indecisiveness.

"Officer Falman, what do you know?"

"I can't say," the older man muttered. His voice was strained, as if it pained him to speak. "I don't want to...you don't know the kinds of things war can do to a man."

"Whatever you've done," Jean said gently, identifying Falman's clear feelings of guilt, "none of us are going to care. We're soldiers, Veto. Everyone at this booth has killed someone. Multiple someones. I guess we can exclude Penny, but I can damn well assure you, she's seen her fair share of shit."

Penny lowered her eyes.

"Come on. Remember, this is for Ed's sake. You want to see that kid again, don't you? Me, you, and the rest of us are taking Ed and Riza out to breakfast next week, I guarantee it. We're gonna fill up this goddamn booth with our fat asses and eat as many waffles as we can take." Jean smiled, and the rest of the group did too. He felt a cold tear slide down his face, in simultaneous run with a melting snowflake on the window.

"Fullmetal's a good kid," Falman agreed sadly, smiling without teeth. It was a compromise. "Too good." He took a look out the window, and the stormy gray skies that could be seen outside it.

He took a breath. "I was put in a different branch in Ishbal. We were supposed to be a medical team—at least that's what they told us. When we got there we were set up in an elementary school in downtown Sur'Ak. General Hidel oversaw us. We were dealing drugs. Opiates. With the Xingese.

"We had to take a course on the language. Three weeks, simple stuff. We picked up more along the way. The Xingese spoke broken English and we spoke broken Xingese, so it worked. There were a few Xingese soldiers who practiced Alkahestry. Apparently, and I didn't find this out until much later, they were conducting experiments on prisoners of war to see about amplifier drugs.

"Drugs that could kill in a heartbeat. Drugs that could keep you alive even if you were a second from death. Drugs that expanded muscle mass. Drugs that could drive a man insane with pain." He was silent for a moment or two. "I wasn't there by the time they brought Ed. He wasn't cooperating. There were other experiments going on in the school; taboo experiments, the kind that the alchemists couldn't comprehend."

Breda hissed through his teeth. "So they drugged him?"

Falman nodded. "I can only assume. Anyway, that's all I can tell you. It was underground. Hushed. The Xingese were promised a bit of the stone, should the military succeed in channeling human lives into one; but they didn't get their reward. There's your answer."

Jean could only feel angry; angry, scared, and overwhelmed. "The military has a reason to be borderline psychotic right now. If the Xingese ever teamed up with the Drachmans, or got ahold of Edward, we would be absolutely fucked. I don't blame anyone. Anyone. At least now I know."

He looked up with hard, ice-blue eyes. "Hidel was working with the Xingese. He had to have been. During the war he went to their side, conformed to their ideas, felt bad for them. And this kidnapping, the way he killed himself once he'd shown me the truth...he expected this to happen."

Breda's face darkened. "Roy might not have taken him after all."

Before anyone else could respond to that statement, Eunice came to the table, arms loaded with plates of hot food. "Here you are. And a ketchup bottle for you, sir. On the house." She winked.

* * *

Breda parked the car at the curb in a cloak of exhaust. Snowflakes dotted the windshield, whispering as they fell. He turned the key in the ignition, and the motor went out. Silence pervaded the small vehicle and its five occupants as they stared at the house, its windows cold and dark with emptiness. An ominous chill shifted their bodies, and they huddled closer together.

The red-haired man turned to the backseat, eyes on Jean. "The squad car's behind us and I don't want a bunch of us in there getting her floor all muddy. Jean, you wanna come with me? You know the layout better than I do. That dog's gotta be hiding somewhere."

Jean reached down to unbuckle his seat belt, accidentally elbowing Martin Creme in the side. "Sure thing. You guys just gonna wait here?"

"I guess," Penny said from the front passenger's side. She looked at him through the rear view mirror, a warm scarf wrapped around her head to protect her ears from the cold. Everyone's breath frosted on the air. "I hate to be a bother, but do you mind if you speed it up a little? Creme and I have to be at headquarters to submit our findings to the Fuhrer."

"I know." Jean stepped out of the car, slamming the door before Penny could protest anymore. The woman meant well, but he didn't want to think of that slimy bastard Hakuro all over what they'd deduced. He doubted anything would come of it anyway, and he didn't want them to desecrate Hidel's corpse over some unproven speculation. Could they _do _that?

Breda stepped up alongside him, bouncing up and down for warmth with his hands shoved deep in his winter coat. "It's fucking freezing out here. You want to go in first?"

"Guess," Jean muttered, teeth chattering. He trekked through the snow, loose ice working its way into his shoes, and approached the front of Riza Hawkeye's porch. The front light was on, which was eerie in itself; he felt like he should knock on the door, even when he knew she wasn't home. Ghosts again.

"Wait," Breda said hurriedly, stopping. He squinted his eyes. "The fuck's that?"

"The lock's broken." Jean came closer to the doorknob, to find that the wood near the lock had been splintered open in chunks. Pieces of small metal littered the porch, half covered in a light dusting of snowflakes. He heard bells in the distance—church bells from Hills Crest, he assumed, dull but powerful against the sound of snow hitting concrete.

"Should we get the guards?"

"Yeah," Jean said after a moment, indecisively looking the house over. Everything else appeared normal. Pale blue window shutters, two stories, a roof turned white from the inclement weather. Just the door, and it instilled a strange fear that he couldn't comprehend. "Probably just some kids, right? Some thieves, found out she was missing and took advantage of it."

He was talking more to himself than to Breda, because the red-haired man had already run to the squad car to talk with the three soldiers inside. The exhaust puffed gray cloud into the atmosphere, smoke and debris against the purity of winter landscape. One of the soldiers stole a glance at the house, and then nodded his head, throwing Breda two pistols.

"Take one," Breda said once he'd returned, holding one of the guns out to Jean. The blond took it without a word, swallowing hard. Breda's intuition was never wrong, and that scared him like nothing could. Not even a half-dead house or an open door that shouldn't be open.

He felt like he was breaking into Riza's home, not entering on the grounds of her benefit. He stepped in, and found that it was colder inside than out. Even the floors were covered in a light dusting of frost; pine wood, and he could still smell the cleaner she must have used sometime that week. The front door opened on the living room, and it was sparse, just as he remembered it as being.

A television set that the woman never watched. Two cream white sofas without any stains to hide. Bookshelves, some with false tomes that she hid her weapons behind. Reminded of the possibility of danger, he raised his gun, the barrel pointed straight at the ceiling, and stepped more lightly. His shoes left water droplets, pooling into each other, ruining Riza's cleaning job.

There was something else there, something else besides the sterile scents that piqued his nostrils. He lowered his eyes, knowing without even knowing. Blood.

"Breda, go wait outside," he ordered, panic a fluttering moth in his chest. His hands started to shake as if he could no longer command them.

"Why, what's going—"

"Go wait outside! I'm a colonel now, you've got to listen to me. Just go." Jean crept closer to the wall, gripping the gun a bit tighter, listening to the metal and plastic crack and pop the more he squeezed. There was a track of paw-shaped, muddy footprints in the foyer. The bedroom lay beyond that, and he saw the lights were on. No dog.

"Jean, I'm not leaving you alone in here," Breda argued, following him, his pistol trained on the ground. "After all the shit that's happened? You're not gonna end up like Fuery, goddamn it!"

"Shut up. Go!"

"No!"

Jean held his hand up, quieting him instantly. Slowly, slowly, he put the same hand to his face, two fingers to his lips. A sound, high and eerie, almost like a scream, but muffled by what sounded like cloth. Coming from the bedroom, frequent cries, sorrowful; echoing in the empty cold of that haunted place. Jean took a few more steps, slowly, his weight shifting the frozen floorboards and making them creak.

He held up his gun once his body was in the door-frame. Breda stayed close behind him, ready to pull the trigger if anything moved; something dark, devastatingly dark, was happening here, and they weren't sure what but human instinct (instinct incredible, could create darkness or run from it) was telling them to turn and run before the blood spread to them, infected them, poisoned them.

"Riza?" Jean whispered, his heart catching in his throat. A shadowed figure sat in a chair in the bedroom, a fire in the grate, blond hair catching the light of the flames. The smell got stronger, but more putrid; no longer just copper and slime, but an airy sense of decay as well.

Breda said nothing, clutching himself with his gun at his side for safekeeping.

"Riza?" Jean approached the figure in the chair. High-back, blond hair. Cascading over the end. The bed was made, crimson sheets. Bedside table had a pair of reading glasses, a glass of old water frozen from the cold. Tea and a spoon of crusted sugar. Her alarm clock ticked, the snow flecked the windowpanes, unseen but heard in the silence.

Whimpering. Riza was whimpering. Unmoving, stiff, staring into the fire grate and whining, a pitch that didn't suit her. Sobbing.

Jean reached to touch her shoulder, and then hissed through his teeth, drawing back his hand as a sharp pain seared through his fingertips. Blood escaped the pricked wound, and he sucked hard, staring at the woman in the chair as she continued to whine, impervious to his presence.

"Jean, she's not..."

"Riza?" The blond man slowly walked around the chair, water dripping from his coat onto the hardwood. He looked down, and found that it was crusted with something black. Dirt, probably; Riza must have gone through a lot to escape. Must have gone through a lot to have gotten here in this chair. Must have gone through a lot to get all of that barbed wire on her body.

He knelt in front of her, a choked sound escaping his throat. Hayate was in her lap, snuggling against cold flesh, his ear caught on a piece of barb; he paid it no attention, crying, nuzzling against her naked form as if that might awaken her from the stench of bloodless sleep. The dog was soaking wet from melted snow, and was the source of the whine, the high-pitched sound of sorrow.

Jean looked up at her face, tears hot and painful as they ran down his cheeks. He couldn't draw breath to cry or sob or scream. She didn't look like herself; she was a distortion of reality, a cold, shapeless being falling apart, held together with sharp wire that cut into her flesh. Eyes gone, face torn apart, mouth full of black blood and dead insects, slimy gray skin.

He went to touch her hand, and realized that her arms had been severed at the elbow, jagged bone and hardening leather flesh all that remained. Cold, so cold. Nothing but a corpse, a monster, broken and bloody and raw. He looked up at Breda, only to find the man had left the room; he heard retching sounds coming from Riza's bathroom on the other end of the foyer.

Crying. More crying.

"You're lying," Jean cried helplessly to the dog, who trembled in shock and despair. "You fucking bastard, it's not true! None of it's true!" He wrapped his arms around Hayate, trying to warm the small life despite his callous words. He pressed his nose against matted, wet fur, anything to keep the smell of rotting blood out of his senses.

He didn't know how long he stayed that way; Alphonse's warning kept replaying, over and over, in his head, cryptic words and dead decay, an impish smile and demon laughter. Tomorrow there'll be a sign but you won't like it, tomorrow there'll be a sign but you won't like it. Stop taunting me, I'm not crazy, I'm just sitting here, I'm in love, see, with this woman but she left me too early and now all I want to do is—

Fuck this, this darkness, this spawn, this work of whatever God we have to call ours. Hello, mother, no I don't want that needle, mother, I don't _want _to give her my blood, that's _my_ blood, Janie don't need my blood, mommy—

_You know, if Karma wasn't such a bitch, you might have a child of your own. _

_But no._

_You're twisted_

_You loved Riza_

_(She's home.)_

_You loved Ed_

_(Oh, he's home, too.)_

_Mommy, love me!_

_Love me! Like they could ever love_ you_!_

"No!" He cocked the pistol, pressing it against his temple, ready to end it all, end it all, die and bleed and die again, spill all of that goddamn precious material they wanted him for. But he couldn't; all that bled were his eyes, sweet, clear tears and perspiration, and he cried hard.

Fell to the floor, to his knees, dropped the gun. Clatter. He felt so goddamn stupid. Who was he to take away his own life? Who was he throw it all away when Riza had never had a choice? Warmth enveloped him. Breda was near him, saying things, little things that made no sense and all the sense in the world. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay."

"She's dead," he sniffed, drawing his sleeve across his nose. "She's dead and I can't, I can't bring her back, I want her_ back_." He felt like a small child, helpless and infantile, watching as all of his favorite toys were taken away and sold off to naughtier children. An abstract comparison, but he didn't care; it was true. If a life was a toy in God's game, oh, it was certainly a perfect comparison.

He looked at the floor, the black blood drying there. His eyebrows furrowed as he saw what was under the chair. Without thinking, he reached across to pick it up. "It's a bible," he mumbled, cracking it open. He swallowed bile. The pages were soaked with blood. They clung to each other, the words unable to be read given the amount of liquid. It was still wet.

Breda took it from him. "What's this?" He pulled a clump of what looked like string from between the pages of Leviticus. "I think it's hair." He handed it to Jean, deciding that since the both of them were already covered in the slime of the room, it didn't matter much anymore.

"It's his hair." Jean pulled the strands free of each other, wiping them of blood so that a pure gold hue shined in the dim light of the room. He curled up, back against the bed, and clutched the lock of hair tightly, closing his eyes against the gruesome scene before him. "It's Edward. Edward's alive."

"How do you know?"

Jean stared up at the ceiling, running his fingers through the lock. "I can feel him."


	31. AN: NEVERMIND

**Okay, let's be honest with ourselves: would I really quit something I've spent two+ years working on? Hell no. Blue's not on hiatus, guys. I was moody and depressed the other night, so in my drug-induced state of inebriation I added a new chapter saying I'd quit. I won't quit. I've got five chapters left; no way am I stopping now! In any case I've gotten all of your reviews and messages and will be responding shortly. :) Thanks to everyone who's been so supportive and understanding. **

**In fact, expect an update and maybe another oneshot this weekend. :) Sorry for being a mentally-inept jackass that inadvertantly stirred up trouble; I didn't expect so much "!" in response. **


	32. Crux

**Review, it's not that hard! I know you're there! I spend twelve hours writing over eleven thousand words, and you can't spare the time to say, you know, "good job" or even "that sucked"? Come on, people. ****Four more chapters left! Then you can fade into silence. **

**Warnings: Gore, language, scenes of a sexual nature, character death. **

* * *

The shuffle of familiar sights and sounds played dully in front of his blue eyes: red lights flashing, a cold empty bag for storing corpses, the smell of hygienic fluids to protect the living from the stench of decay. But the dramatic thrill of macabre discovery no longer lingered in the investigation's unit. The chaos bored them. They'd become what they feared the most, shells of human beings.

Jean didn't seem to notice them in their quiet trek through the snow, in and out of the empty house. Primal sensations such as cold and uncomfortable still seemed to resonate with him, but everything else in his brain had shut down. He was frozen, trapped in a loop of thought and action. Three hours since he had found her body in the armchair, and he still held onto the lock of gold hair.

By now, he had rubbed all of the blood onto recently polished hardwood. His fingertips were soiled red, and it was slowly drying into slimy black that corroded away like pencil shavings. He didn't miss blood, of all things. Premonition, or paranoia, told him that he would soon be elbow-deep in blood again, so he should welcome the absence of it.

It was a lock cut away by a sharp blade, softer than cotton and representing all he wouldn't allow himself to feel. Edward was alive; the truth was in every brilliant yellow strand, the scent of the boy caught there but hidden among the foul taste of death. The scent was like sunflowers or bran, fresh and earthen. It was like the gold had a heartbeat, a voice that soothed him, quieted the thrum of fear. The hum of his spirit lay trapped within.

Click. Flash. Photographs of the deceased; autopsy references. He walked into the bedroom, staying close to the wallpaper to keep out of the investigation's workspace. The place smelled like mud, chemicals and rubber gloves, and there wasn't much conversation to overhear. The crime scene had been left in a gruesome condition, haphazard and bloody. So much evidence could be discerned from it. Perhaps now that Mustang had effectively revealed himself as the serial murderer, the man was less careful about where he left the bodies.

But he wouldn't say that.

"Throat was slit, probably by a knife about five millimeters thick," Penny said. She knelt on the ground directly in front of the corpse, careful in her ministrations, careful in her observations, but otherwise as emotionless as the tools she worked with. "Most of the damage seems to have been done after she was already dead. Fits the pattern. Had to have been Mustang."

Most of the victims had been killed before they were chopped to pieces, blunt objects to the head, tongues severed, throats cut out. Alphonse Elric was one of the only exceptions; Edward could have botched the autopsy, and Havoc didn't blame him, but the blond had been under the impression that Al had finally died once his heart was ripped from his chest cavity. Alphonse's death was prolonged torture.

"Why would he leave her like this?" he wondered.

"His target was Ed, we're assuming." Penny touched one of the barbs lightly, and then traced the edge of the wire until she found a smoother piece. "Riza probably tried to intervene during the abduction. He left her here in a hurry to get away. There shouldn't have been time to cover things up." She looked to Jean as if asking permission, and then tugged slowly at the strand, ripping a cross of barb from what was left of Riza's lower torso. The forced separation of metal from dead flesh sounded like buttons snapping.

Jean edged out of the way for a woman with a camera. Another man in the forensics department studied the back of the ornate chair Riza sat on, trying to find any tears or discrepancies in the fabric. He powdered the wood of the chair with a strange white dust, and then shined a deep blue light on it. There were only faint traces of fur outlines; probably from Hayate's coat.

"What are you doing?" Jean asked as he watched Penny remove more of the wire, slipping the pieces in a durable cloth evidence bag.

The dark-haired woman looked up at him, and then back down, pursing her lips in a gentle sort of guilt. "I need to have access to her genitals, Colonel. It's procedure, nothing more. If you want to leave, you are welcome to do so. However I should inform you that you're not to leave the property. Your bodyguards are in the living area, and they're armed."

He took a short breath, keeping silent even as the current of his thoughts overtook his brain in a mad tumultuous roar. He wanted to melt into a simpering mess, but Riza's dead weight occupied the only chair, bloodstains on the fabric. Whispered memories in his ear told of days when her stiff lungs moved with breath. Days when Colonel Mustang looked longingly at the female lieutenant, when the two were like twin birds in a storm: the raven, the hawk.

Roy Mustang wouldn't murder Lieutenant Hawkeye. Even if she asked him to, he would refuse, pull her close and force her to wait out the rain. And now, the very implication and probable notion that the man might have raped and mutilated her made Jean's blood boil to a pungent steam. He should have kept a better eye on them; Edward and Roy, Roy and Riza, drew closer to the flames instead of flitting away like a frightened animal. Now there was nothing to protect but a corpse and a bit of hair in his pocket.

"Remember what we talked about at the diner," Penny said as if reading his thoughts. "We still have our doubts. Mustang has a key role in this, but eyewitness accounts and other evidence speak for themselves. He might not have killed her." She furrowed her eyebrows together, abandoning using her fingers on the barbs and instead resorting to a pair of tools that looked like thick tweezers. She clipped away at the barbed wire on the corpse's broken legs, slowly readying to part them.

Jean knew what she referred to, and also knew that he couldn't speak of it here with so many government-paid witnesses around. It had to do with General Hidel, that much he was certain of. He remembered what the man had told him, back in that dark room with the philosopher's stone tanks. _"He would try to get that information out of him to sell to enemy states. And that information, in the military's eyes, would mean certain enemies gaining the knowledge to make their own stone_._"_ Hidel had dropped a hint at the time. Killed himself so that he would be silenced forever; his secrets died with him.

In any case, Xingese philosopher's stone and Edward would have to be discussed later, and out of the earshot of investigations.

Breda came in shortly after, a dusting of snow in his red hair. He sniffed from the cold, and Jean could tell he had just been outside because of his ruddy complexion. "I tied the dog out back. You want to come here for a second? Think we might have found a shoe print out on the front walkway. We couldn't find the sole impression but it's the right size."

Jean took one last look at Penny, bristling at the thought of how a rape kit was meant to be carried out (wasn't like he'd asked Ed, of course). That was hallow ground, and for the sake of his sanity he didn't want to glimpse it. Leave the girl in peace. Penny would inform him of the results-he was almost certain of the fact, and rape meant body fluids, which meant identification. They would know for sure.

He followed Breda through the hallway, past another small line of police, and into the biting cold where winter had settled into silver landscape. Everything was white: snow blanketed the roads, the houses, the sidewalks, anything man-made as if to remind humankind just how impure they were. It was heaven to Jean's hell.

"Here," Breda said as they reached the designated spot.

It had been marked by a small placard with a number on it. At first Jean couldn't see anything in the thick blanket of snow; he finally took note of a sunken, boot-shaped imprint in the drift. It had been covered by more snow during the morning, so as Breda had mentioned, there were no trademarks or brand names to be found.

"Go get me the Charleston case file," Jean commanded. His fingers twitched nervously at his side, and he drummed them against his leg idly to distract himself from his anxiety. "And a ruler." Once Breda had gone back into the warmth of the house, Jean knelt in the snow to get a closer examination of the shoe print. The narrower end faced the house perfectly, so any previous steps must have been made in the yard. Whoever had dumped Riza's body would have had to have carried her across the lawn before breaking into the house, presumably.

Moreover, the print was deep, as if the person who made it had been carrying something heavy.

He looked at the street. The neighbors hadn't seen anything, no strange vehicles or characters? Mustang's face was plastered across every television screen in Central. He knew the area was relatively high-class, and the inhabitants kept to themselves, but even with the number of police cars crowding the street, there hadn't been so much as a peep from anyone; no knocks on the doors, no faces in the other houses' windows. He would've called it unusual, and then remembered the troops patrolling the city.

He didn't blame them for not wanting to get involved. Then, still, maybe they hadn't seen Mustang because Mustang hadn't done it.

"Got it," Breda said once he'd returned. He handed a ruler and the thick manila folder to the newly promoted colonel, and then took a step back, creating his own set of footprints in the dead garden bed.

Jean measured the print carefully, and then flipped through the folder. That night under the stars, the breeze cooling his hair, filtering out the scent of congealing blood. Edward's beautiful smile, fading into oblivion as the warning signs flickered over and over again. Jean wished he had seen them for what they were at the time; maybe this wouldn't be happening. "It's twenty-six and a half centimeters. That's a men's eleven. Same as the print Ed found in the field on the side of the highway."

"So it's the same guy."

"Maybe." He frowned, at the same time his forehead creased into its own. Edward's notes were scrawled quickly on military-issue notebook paper, organized as thoughts flowing from one tangent to the next as easily as water from a pitcher. He had typed some of the more important ones up officially; most were chicken-scratch. "The first print belonged to a 1994 shoe manufactured and sold primarily in the country of Ishbal. The company never exported their products to Amestris."

"So?" Breda kicked a loose pebble into the snow drift.

"So you can't buy them here. And Roy didn't go to Ishbal except in 1989, before the shoes were even conceptualized, and in 1999 with Edward, when they'd long gone out of style. He couldn't have possibly owned these shoes. He's also a size twelve; I'm sure he could fit into these if he really wanted to, but I doubt it, and we all know how he feels about Ishbal. I've just never thought about it before."

Breda ran his hand over his face, sighing in doubt as he examined the foot print with his own two eyes. "I don't know, Jean," he finally admitted. "It seems like you're grasping at straws here. He admitted to the crime. We know he did it. We know it. The only trouble is finding the bastard."

"But Riza. When he called Creme's cell phone during the hospital fire, he never mentioned her. Why do you think that is?"

"He probably just didn't want anyone to know. For God's sake, there was enough pandemonium without him listing which subordinates he'd killed this time." The man swallowed a lump in his throat, thinking of Fuery. He hadn't technically been killed by Mustang, but damn it, close enough. "We trusted the bastard. We trusted him with Ed, and he fucking _violated _him. We trusted him to make things right, but he fucked them up worse than before."

"I'm not trying to improve his goddamn image," Jean muttered in frustration, tossing the ruler down. He stood up, clutching himself tight. It was cold outside and he'd always hated it when he wasn't believed. It reminded him of the child inside, screaming when he couldn't have his way. "The fucker can rot in hell for what he did to Ed. All I'm saying is that I think we're after the wrong person. I hate that bastard, I _hate _him, and I'm gonna kill him. But he's not who we're after."

"Then who are we after, man? The fuckin' trees? Frank Archer? His body's in the creek."

"His body's not in the creek, the creek's frozen solid. The police combed it up and down. There's nothing there."

They hadn't found Frank Archer's body. He had to be alive, a conspirator with Roy or a man working alone. Perhaps had been in cohorts with Hidel to give Ed to the Xingese, Jean's main theory. But if Archer was the one responsible, why kill so many innocents? To cover up the deal? And where was he now? With everyone looking for the man, it would have been impossible for Archer to make a quick getaway by car, boat, or plane. Transportation was off-limits for everyone, not just for men who were supposed to be dead.

He was still in Central. If Archer wanted to make money off of selling Ed as a weapon, he should have been halfway to Xing.

"Colonel Archer killed Fuery with an injection," he started meekly, thinking hard about his argument before he presented it. "The Xingese could have lent him the drugs. The Fuhrer's not a fan of Ed, and wasn't aware of Hidel's treason. He got wind of the rape and decided to have Archer assassinate Ed." He licked his dry lips, watching Breda's expression, but it didn't change. He had never really thought about it that way before, and while it was a revelation, he steamed ahead. "But Archer defied his orders. During the fire, he dragged Ed off."

"And then Mustang killed him and took Ed for himself. He told you on the phone."

"No, that's only what he _said_. The cars' interiors, remember? It was a lie. The cell phone pictures could have been taken on Archer's phone, and sent to Roy. They were used for convincing the police Roy took him, and for getting Roy to cooperate." He clenched his hands into fists again. He was comforted by the idea that Mustang was a victim, as well. "That's why Riza wasn't mentioned. The point of the pictures was to coerce Roy into helping him. But what in God's name could Roy help with?"

* * *

_Colorful paper birds fluttered beneath the soldiers' feet, remnants of elementary school art projects ripped from the walls and blown out of abandoned desks. Their heavy boots and the racket of shaking guns tight in their hands created a cacophony of mechanical noises. One machine, one purpose. _

_Edward screamed for him. Mustang had never seen anyone cry so hard in his life; the sound wasn't human, hoarse and twisted and shrill. They threw him down, beat him bloody. The colonel couldn't see a damn inch of skin underneath all of that scarlet, but held his tongue. Needles hit the floor. Yellow serum, white serum, red serum, blue serum. _

_The blue serum did the trick. _

_The boy went into a catatonic state of half-consciousness; limp but erect, kneeling on the ground with his hands dangling just before him. Blood dripped down his face, his neck, his clothes, until they licked the edge of the transmutation circle. Gold eyes took in the crowd: two thousand lives, crammed and living in their own shit, staring at him. Just staring. Completely unaware of the power. Completely unaware of - _

_The moment - _

_When it would- _

Thoughts all coming to a close.

_"You're on fire," Edward whispered to himself, rocking back and forth, shuddering violently as the poison racked his already tormented body. They'd told him Al was dead. That's all he could remember, and he didn't care about anything else. These people were better off in his hands. "Count to ten, it'll all go away, count to ten, it'll all go away..." _

I'll make it quick if you hold still. _  
_

_The boy's eyes met his, and Roy inhaled coarse dry air, horrified by the madness that had overcome him.  
_

_Ed smiled in the summer breeze, feeling stray heat brush his hair to the side of his face. They all smiled, too, turning black as charcoal. Oh, the flames were lovely. Blue and blue at the heart but red and orange as they extended; like raw, primal emotions that chafed mortal flesh too closely. Edward watched them burn. _

_Their eyes disintegrated with a little pop. _

_The Ishballans melted into pools of colored wax, and like crayons, little stumps got left behind. Paper curling around mutilated flakes of color. A man screamed, blood spurting from a severed limb caught in the transmutation while he got left behind; decapitated bodies, children flailing with missing limbs, eyes, fingers, toes, jaws, skulls, kneecaps, noses. A woman lay dead, cut cleanly in half by the transmutation's forces. Her one eye open in shock._

_Belly ripped open, wounds in a sac of liquid, half-grown fetus tumbling out. __The thing saw death before life. _

_Corpses littered the gymnasium; when there weren't corpses, there was blood, and lots of it, coating the place in sticky clumps. Roy barely had time to finger for his radio; too much vomit on his clothes, holding him in place. Perhaps the most sickening thing was the dark red glow above them, like an apocalyptic sun rising. A scarlet diamond, humming with the harvested souls of the bloodless deceased. _

_No one wanted it anymore._

Fear prickled up and down his spine, his heart throbbing like a creature trying to escape his chest. Sweat drenched his foul-smelling clothes; he dimly noted that he hadn't bathed or changed attire in days. The stench of his own body warned away the charcoal tang of alchemy, hot and powerful in the air. Although it was just a memory, the memory was vivid, an ambiance so powerful it made every hair on his body stand erect. He felt dry and warm, as if surrounded by the fervor of static electricity.

Roy forced his eyes open, blinking against the sticky mess of sleep. He felt around with his hands. Decorative cushions, tiny colored beads on the fabric. Noises in the next room, like running water, the taps and whispers of a child and her toys. The smell of bland cooking. He reached for the piece of notebook paper at his side. The words had faded away to little more than an ink-soaked scrawl from the moisture of his hand.

He looked up at the dusty ceiling, thinking on the dream. More a memory than a dream, he knew, though sometimes he liked to pretend it was a nightmare. Not real. All of it true; sometimes his nights ran together with other memories, other thoughts, other dreams, and he couldn't remember from where they originated, but he felt in his heart they were collectively true.

What had horrified him most from that transmutation weren't the souls and bodies compressed into a tiny blood-red stone, a living amplifier, screaming with the last sounds of the deceased. It was the ones who survived. The bodies and blood and rotting corpses that had _caked _the gymnasium once the transmutations had achieved their purpose; the chorus of screams hadn't ended until hours later, when the last man in 'sanitation' had scraped a final dying woman off the floor and into a truck. Death became life, life became death.

He'd gone temporarily insane; Edward had been far past that point, succumbing to a comatose-like dementia that had lasted for weeks. He didn't eat. He didn't sleep. Woke up screaming, tried clawing out his own throat with his fingernails, begged Roy to kill him. Al had been restored to flesh and bones, though lay in an incapacitated fever in the West State Hospital. Ed thought his brother was dead, and didn't believe anyone who told him otherwise.

He took up a habit of collecting metal; soda tabs, foil, can lids, even the staples in his gauze. Jean gave him a shoebox to put it all in. It was still in the house, somewhere. A permanent reminder of the darkness that overtook them all. Finally Ed snapped, falling into a sleep like half-death, and when he finally opened his eyes again he regained some scraps of sanity.

Al had witnessed it. When he woke up, he wheeled himself in Edward's room (no windows, several guards), said a few words, and managed to get his brother to sit up. Ed claimed he couldn't remember anything; bits and pieces, mostly, but it was like his brain had selectively erased any memory of the atrocity he'd committed. Roy never believed that. There was something dark about the teen's presence from then on, like he was carrying the weight of a thousand men on his shoulders. Perhaps he was.

Maybe that was why he invested so much of his time in cold medicine. Ed wanted to destroy whatever brain cells were left. If it was true, and Ed's mind had somehow fragmented his war memories to a point of selective amnesia, they had all been grateful for it. Unlike the selectivity with which the stone chose its victims.

The transmutation, as Roy had deduced from watching the cursed thing activate, was delicate. He likened it to microwave ovens. Radiation was like the energy of alchemy; people were like metal, particles that were great material for absorbing that energy, but also containing elements (the soul, perhaps) that refracted the waves in spikes. There had been too many people in too small an array; some were skipped over, some were skewered.

And Edward's words on the phone, just yesterday. "_Cut-off._" The soldiers' term for the ones not taken by rapture.

If Charlie was a cut-off, then that meant he was a victim. Roy didn't blame him for wanting to kill either of them, because what they'd done had been nothing short of grisly mass-murder. Charlie was a man whose people had been fed to the gears of genocide; Charlie was a man whose family had been eaten alive by red-hot alchemy. Charlie had lived through human transmutation. Edward's transmutation.

At that moment, all of his senses were pulled back to the present. He heard a few hollow, wooden-sounding raps coming from the adjoining foyer. He put the pillow down beside him, and sat up on the couch, breathing in and out to ease the clench of anxiety in his chest. Sounds of cooking and playing had ceased entirely.

A loud noise, like a gunshot, echoed throughout the old building, making dust rain down on the former colonel's head. He clenched the sofa cushions with his hands, eying the walls as if he could see straight through them. Sudden light filled the foyer, halted only by the bulky shadow of distinct shapes on the threshold. Roy froze in place, eyes widening; police.

He reached under the small cushion beneath his ass, fingers touching the colorful beads threaded through the fabric. No gun. Where the fuck was it? With the ink pen that had been stashed in his pocket, he retraced the transmutation circle on the back of his hand, and inhaled the cool air of the house, watching the shadows and listening intently.

There were footsteps in the hall, none of them silent; they didn't belong to the soft slippers the woman wore as she went about the house in domestic duty. These were heavy, hard boots that thudded and cracked rotting wood.

Silence upon silence, compounding itself until it went into a negative dimension of deafening proportions. Then softer footsteps, cradled by cotton slippers. The little girl rushed in through another doorway, finger to her chapped lips, grabbing his wrist with a sense of urgency. He allowed her to guide him through the place, small but rebuilt so many times it was a maze of rooms and doorways, and finally arrived at a small closet. She took his hand and beckoned him in, as if revealing an imagined secret place.

He remembered Elysia, and he felt his heart give a little twinge of regret. But this girl's expression was dark, not full of the light children naturally had. She sat on the floor, huddling with her knees drawn up to her chest. He winced as he once again came face to face with the painful looking scar on the back of her head; no, this was no child. This was the ghost of one.

He heard footsteps upstairs, heavy and booted, like before. Something like rolling pins or bowling balls on the surface of the floorboards. A muffled scream. Fear slowly spread outwards, a liquid substance that nauseated like bile. Concern for himself melted away as he realized what was happening. These weren't police; these were bad, bad men, and they were assaulting his savior. He clenched his fists.

"Is your mother upstairs?" he asked quietly, growing immediately protective. He didn't even know the woman's name, referring to her by a pronoun in his head, but nonetheless she had sheltered him and fed him while the rest of the world rightfully thought him a murderer. A group of men had broken into her slum, a sanctuary for all three of them, and they weren't friendly. "Do you know who these people are? Have they been here before?" Did they have anything to do with Charlie?

The urge to shake the child was overpowering; he controlled the fire.

The little girl just shook her head, unable to speak. Never able to speak.

Roy looked up at the ceiling. Cracks wound through the plaster; old burns had been covered up with cheap paint, paint, and more paint. The effect was a sickly red and brown mess. It flaked with every step from above, powdering the small closet space in a frosting of ancient housing. "Stay here. Do you understand me?"

She nodded, stiffening as small sobs racked her body. There was no tonality to them-they were like breathy chokes of air. He put a hand on her shoulder as if to comfort her, not sure why he did it, and from that brief touch a steady, golden warmth overtook the nausea. A small, vulnerable life was in his hands; he'd done so much wrong...

He needed to save.

He left the closet and shut the doors to leave the girl safe in darkness. Carefully, trying not to make any sounds whatsoever, he made the slow trek from the living area to the bottom of the staircase; he could see an open door at the top of the landing, though the room was perpendicular to his eyes. Faint shadows played about, puppets to the sounds of muffled words and screams.

He touched two fingers to the back of his other hand, and went slowly up the stairs, crouching near the wall. The transmutation flickered silver, sensing his power but not activating. Only charging.

Once he reached the top of the stairs, he dared a look inside through the open crack of the doorway. Old military operations had required a sense of stealth. For once, he was glad he'd gone to war. But the sight was less than picturesque. The woman who had sheltered him sat on a dirty old sofa, rusty springs poking out of the cushions. She held a pillow close as if for comfort. Four, five, six men surrounded her; the leader seemed to be the one speaking, a Xingese man with sunglasses and the attire of a motorcyclist.

"Where is he hiding, Fadiyah?" the man in the sunglasses asked. He spoke perfect English, without traces of any accent. From the closet, Roy watched his body language. Behind the rich leather jacket, he detected ripples of muscle and powerful bones. He didn't need the knife in his hand to be intimidating. "In here? In this shithole?" To emphasize his words, he kicked at the old couch, smirking at the groan of rusted metal.

"_Khāʼin. _I know no plan," the woman said, voice muffled by the small pillow she clutched to her face and chest, "I only obey."

"That is your fault, Fadiyah. Here I am, about to make history for your people and mine, and your bastard prophet runs away with the treasure. Do you have any idea how _tired _I am of this game?" He walked until he stood beside the ragged couch, both palms spread on the arm. His fingers caressed the cloth, a ruby-red ring catching on frayed string. "I've done nothing but worshiped the ground he hobbles on."

The men laughed, a contentious sound that Roy was all-too familiar with. It was an act of companionship, of following the leader even when being led into ruin. There was a tension in the group of men that could be described as a kinship of the fallen. A brethren of those who could no longer sleep, continued on if only to see others suffer the same fate. An army of _men_.

"You can no speak of prophet," the woman said with a touch of sulfur in her voice. "He is strong. He fights. He is good man."

"Good indeed," he responded, reaching out to brush her dark hair with his fingers. Roy narrowed his eyes in the bar of light coming through the door, daring him to touch her any more intimately than that. Again, fear for his self had been transformed into fear for the innocent. "And yet he left you alone. Why aren't you with the rest of the sorry filth you call your kin? Perhaps they've abandoned you, too."

"He trust me."

"With what?"

She looked up at him, red eyes-for they could only be red, the color was distinct in the crystalline strain of sunshine coming through the windowpanes- smoldering like the raging fires that had swept her homeland away. Her hand clenched against the pillow. "To trust him where others could not."

His jaw worked fervently, as if he were holding back a litany of foul curse words. For a moment Roy thought he might leave her alone, and the tension slowly eased out of his muscles. Then the Xingese man struck her hard across the face, sending her body flying off the lounge and onto the floor with a bang. Roy wanted to move, but his breath had caught in his throat. If the woman knew where Charlie was, he wanted to hear it; so far, she didn't seem to.

If it got too violent, he would intervene. He promised himself that. Finding Ed was more important than saving an illegal migrant woman, after all; he couldn't expect himself to jump into the fray before anything was revealed. He had to think practically.

"You sorry _biǎo zi._" The man crouched beside Fadiyah, listening to her as she started to sob with her fist half in her mouth. Blood leaked from her lips across her knuckles and down her wrist. "I know you're not as ignorant as you pretend to be. If your beloved prophet trusts you, he must have told you where he is hiding out."

She glared at him through a sheen of tears, the picture of feminist resentment through terror. "No. I did not ask."

His lip twitched. "Then perhaps your next of kin would part their lips; where are they hiding these days? The Rinoa District was plundered weeks ago. Where have you creatures been festering, breeding?" He held up the knife, pressing it from handle to tip in his hands, brandishing it for her to see. "They value the flesh of their women."

"You are stupid if think I betray my own."

"Oh, well," the man said thoughtfully, sighing and rubbing the back of his head. He nodded to his men, who made a tight circle around them, rotted teeth and black skull caps. "I'm sure that if we got you to scream loud enough, your pretentious fuck of a prophet might save you." He held up the knife, lips quieking in a smile that didn't reach his coal black eyes. "Spread her legs."

Roy's heart dropped.

She started kicking and screaming as they crowded around her, greedy eyes and pulsing hearts; blood in the crotch, blood on her wrist, blood as they bit and choked and punched and scratched at her, finally getting a good grip on her limbs. Bruises. Roy had that funny feeling roar up again; instinct, maybe. But this was different than the kind of protection he'd had earlier with the little girl.

This was a sick, guilty kind of dread. He felt like he was looking in the mirror, his sense of self seeping away through the crack in the door. Surely his relationship with Edward had never been this violent.

_You don't need me-What, you want to scream for your brother, you pathetic shit-No! Stop! Al! Alphon—Go ahead, cry for him, see if anyone saves you—Sorry? You're fucking sorry-Don't mind that I know the things I do. I'm only here to help-Don't scream-Bleeding cleanses the soul-I promise I'll forget. I won't remember-I'm not going to hurt you-Please...please don't do this-This is for your own good, darling..._

Lies. Ed was his little angel, sweet and soft and scarred and sinned against. More screams, stop screaming. I'm not here for you. Then again, Ed certainly cried a lot when he got inside him. All of that precious agony, those eyes bleeding salt, that soul crumbling away beneath flesh not quite whole. He just wanted a little warmth, for a little while. Something meth and alcohol couldn't give him. Something more substantial.

Hot blood on his hands. The mere idea of controlling fire; saving Edward from his sins by making sure he suffered just as much as they did. Use him, take him, over and over again, until there was nothing left but salt from the tears of yet another angel. Burned. To Dust.

The Xingese man raised his knife. Their skin dripped with Fadiyah's tears, her screams muffled behind inch-thick bone and sinew.

Roy bled into the surroundings, barely registering the motion of his own two feet. One kick and the door was open, smacking the wall, the lights flickering. Six heads snapped to look at him, the knife went still, sparkling in the sunshine; Roy snarled, feeling like a dragon awake in embers, pressing his fingers tight to the transmutation circle on the back of his hand. Voices shouting. Slow movements. He felt no pain as they charged at him.

"It's that fucking lookalike!" the leader yelled. "Kill him!"

Guns flared, shots rang out. Time tripled. Density. Gravity. Forces of nature. He kicked the leader in the head, stepping on his face with the sound of bones crunching in his skull. His head emptied of blood. Roy dodged a flash of silver; a knife, he noted with a dark squint of his eyes, jumping back and grabbing Fadiyah by the back of her collar. He threw her back into a wall, out of the fray; bullets whistled past his ear, embedding themselves in the walls, glass shattering along the way.

He felt power go out of him, like that day in the hospital. The brief moment of weakness as energy transferred itself into the design on his skin. It pulsed like a heartbeat. The air throbbed and fuzzed into incomprehensible images, like heat on black pavement. He let go of all that tension. Focused on the angry faces, the guns, the greasy fingers on the triggers of fully-automatic weapons-

Hot air.

Chaos.

Agonized screams tore at his ears; the thug dropped his gun, beating desperately at dark red flames that licked his flesh, making it curl black like burning tissue paper. He stumbled into a wall, falling to his knees, tried rolling like they'd taught him in training. Roy bristled against the sound of screams, the hoarse cough of the burning human being. He imagined it wasn't the pain so much as the horror of disintegrating; of knowing that your body, your sacred vessel, was ruined beyond repair.

Black, black black.

As for the others.

Smoke clogged the room; more bullets, more screams, more shouts. He shoved another man away as the bastard ran to kill him point blank, and then pressed his index finger to the circle, watching as more flames shot out from thin air, curling themselves around the thug in an impenetrable grasp. Another dying scream. This one tried to jump out the window; he got halfway out, managing to knock another man into the wall, set the couch on fire (burn what was left, good riddance) and then found paralysis amid the broken glass, skin melting off in thick chunks of congealing blood and squealing fat.

Roy stepped on broken furniture, across pillars of smoke and flame, sweat and ash clogging his pores. Darkness cloaked him. He heard shouts of fear, anger; the living crowded against the walls, clothing pressed over nose and mouth. The smoke smelled of rank, burning flesh, pig oil and slippery, speedy decay.

"Shoot the piece of shit! Don't let him transmute!"

Roy didn't let the leader have time to reach for his gun. Burning, burning, burning, and the crass authority melted into screams of agony. When only one man remained, he went for Fadiyah, grabbing her and throwing her out into the less smoky hallway. She was sobbing and shaking, clutching her head scarf in milky carpals. "Your girl is downstairs in the closet. Take her and leave."

"I stay, I must stay!" she protested.

"Go!" He shut the door in her face, shoving a charcoal black body in front of the crack at the bottom of the door to prevent too much smoke from escaping. He burned his fingertips on the meat, and licked the blood from them to relieve the pain. Then he turned to the other occupant, a trembling beaten thug with a bloody head and a bullet wound in his chest. Someone had missed their target in the smoke screen.

"Get away from me!" the man shouted above the roar of burning wood, crawling back into the wall, clutching his wound with broken bloody fingers. "You monster!"

"You almost fucking mutilated someone for not having the right answers. I'm just giving you a taste of what you already know!" He touched the transmutation circle in a clear threat. It glowed, but he kept it at bay, focusing the energy internally. He needed to control it. He needed to make sure the fire didn't kill the both of them. "What could she have possibly done for you?"

"She knows where he is!" The man licked at his lips, head swerving back and forth as he tried to find an exit. He choked on black fog, and then groaned in pain. "One of my bosses worked for the Amestrian military. He found the prophet in a ditch. Said he'd do work for us if we gave him safety from the feds."

"Charlie?" Roy pondered, thinking again on the transmutation. Charlie must have been dumped there by sanitation; it was a miracle, or a tragedy, that the fucker had survived. "Charlie works for you?"

"We've been looking for that bastard for days!" the thug said, spittle frothing from his lips. His eyes were mad from the heat, skin dark red, blisters forming on the flesh. He gave another moan of pain, wailing a bit as a tendril of flame bit his sleeve, making it smoke and crust over with embers. "Ever since you and that brat disappeared! He owes us what we fucking came for!"

"What did he promise? Blood? Is that why he killed the women, so that you bastards had Aryan girls to rape and murder?"

"He killed the girls as a cover!" he said, voice louder and more desperate. He let out a torrent of sobs. "Please, please help me, don't kill me, please."

"A cover for what? Tell me!" Roy gritted his teeth, pressing his finger harder against the circle, watching it flare silver and gold. Screams smashed into his ears, amplified by the rush of hot air as it consumed the sorry bastard on the floor. No fire, just heat. Enough to suffocate, but Roy wouldn't be so merciful. He pulled back, gently filtering oxygen back into the thug's space.

"We're supposed to kidnap the Fullmetal," he cried, hot tears leaking from dark Xingese eyes. Blood pooled on his flesh, hot from blistered skin. "Charlie choose the street with his namesake to find his victims. They were prostitutes. Girls that wouldn't be missed. We didn't touch them, I swear. He threw them away. Please..."

"What did you want to cover up?"

"The abduction. We were supposed to grab him and leave; the girls were a distraction. He never gave us the kid, he lied to save his own ass. In the end the victims are all meat, and he'll get away with it because he's documented as dead."

Roy nodded slowly, and then turned on his heel, broadening the space between them. He put both hands at his side.

"Hey, hey, where you going? You can't leave me here!"

He kicked the corpse away from the door, splitting the crusted flesh and bone as if it were burned plaster. Ignoring the shouted pleas behind his back, he went into the cooler sanctuary of the hallway, breathing in the stale air as if it were life itself. Then he shut the door, the hot wood like the stone of a crypt.

He imagined the room with all of its decrepid filth accumulated; human remains that no longer served a purpose, if indeed any to begin with. In the grand scheme of things, just little black particles of matter in the space of time. He filled it with his heat, his sins, his fears, listening as the rush of white flame drowned out the sounds of screams. They died away in an instant; so hot death incinerated him in mercy.

Roy had never liked the house anyway. It was more a prison than a home, and the girl and Fadiyah deserved better.

He took the stairs down three at a time. Fire licked the ceiling at the bottom of the landing; chunks of wood and concrete and brick rained down from above. Ashes were like snow, drifting about and clutching his hair, never quite melting away. The woman and her child weren't there. They had escaped, which was a blessing. No need to dig arond in hot debris.

He found them outside. Fadiyah was on the ground, face swollen with tears, rocking back and forth muttering a series of foreign prayers under her breath. Roy admired her faith. After all she'd been through, after all she'd seen, she still believed in her god. Perhaps it was foolishness, or perhaps it was ignorance. No matter. She had chosen a path, and was staying close to it.

He ran up to them. Dead grass crunched beneath his feet, the snow recently covering it melted by the scorching power of the flames. The dilipidated building crumbled away, attracting the eyes and ears of other neighbors; women and children, all of forein descent, crowded the street in their rags. Smoke eclipsed the sunlight, turning everything to choking smog.

"Do you know where Bryar Street is?" he asked Fadiyah, gently touching her shoulder. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth, disguising his face and protecting his lungs through the same action. Children's cries echoed in his ears; mama, mama, look at the darkness! See it spread?

"I know, but I am afraid," she responded, pulling her daughter down beside her. The girl stared at the smoke and fire as if fascinated by them; soot stained her whole body from head to toe. "The authority will send us back."

"I know a man on Bryar," Roy said, thinking of Heymans Breda and his small loft, "he won't turn you in. Tell him what's happened here. Tell him that Mustang's going after Archer. Tell him that he should stop searching; that no one and nothing will be left when I'm done."

She looked at him searchingly, questions brimming in her eyes. "Tell him Mustang will get Archer...he should stop searching." She cringed, clutching her daughter closer. "Nothing left."

"Thank you."

Fadiyah seemed to hesitate for a moment, looking at the melted puddles of ice on the streets, the reflections of passerby, the reflections of beaten, rusted cars and wives looking up at a pillar of fire. "You want to find Charlie." She clenched her fist as if coming to a conclusion. "I do not know, but someone who does. There is blind man near Charleston Street. He owns meat shop. He has a dog. Blind man, he comes to know my brothers. They are in cellar."

"He's hiding them?"

"From authorities. Blind, so tells truth when he says he's seen nothing," Fadiyah said quietly. "Girl was killed around there. Morgan. Charlie did it." She choked on a sob, wringing her hands on her dress and shawl. "I begged him not to, but he said was necessary."

Tears came to his eyes. Finally, Charlie's location was in his grasp. The closer he got to Charlie, the closer he got to Edward. That was all that mattered to him anymore. Finding his kid, pulling him out of the darkness. Sending him off to be with the rest of the angels; Edward deserved nothing but sleep.

He nodded once, touching her shoulder in an almost-embrace, and then scampered off across the yard into the street. "1826 Bryar Street, he has red hair, take a subway!" he called over his shoulder.

He no longer questioned where the world would take him in all of its ephemeral glory. He knew what to expect. Pain and pleasure had woven a pattern of invisible scars all across his body, transparent touches of sin. The blood. The sweat. The tears. Tracks of grime, mud, and slime. Handprints; those times when _don't touch me _weren't enough to keep him restrained.

Bullet wounds (Havoc had shot him without mercy, aiming to kill, aiming to kill for what he'd done). Stab wounds. Bits of shrapnel. His ears rang with phantom cannon fire, screams, bones crunching, telephones ringing. That voice in his ear, telling him that it was okay; okay to take that sweet little blond and inflict an intimate, trust-killing torment.

No one can see.

And if it can't be seen it never existed; a philosophy that many lived by, be they butchers on Charleston Street, the men who took drugs in their wiry veins, a group of colleagues (friends, family members, surrogates) that turned blind eyes to abuse, rich bastards who took prostitutes to bed, a serial killer who worked from the shadows of inexistnce, a doctor who took money and ignored a sixteen year old rape victim's hints.

Charlie would pay for what he'd done to them all; for stringing Alphonse Elric on a wall. For taking advantage of his weaknesses: his lust for power, drugs, and Edward. The untouchable desires. His vices. He would pay for killing women, children, leaving their bodies to stew in the fetid waste of abandoned establishments. For murdering Riza Hawkeye, his sister, lover, friend. For Frank Archer's continued assault.

The last sentiment was the most offensive.

He ducked into an alley; the air was abuzz with sirens and cacophany. He watched the tendrils of smoke ease their way from the old house into the ghetto's skyline. It looked funny. The ash was like a cloud of moths, eating up the blue sky in their midst.

**

* * *

**

Those damn moths again, Frank thought as he entered the small, concrete room. They nested in the place during the winter, as he had recently learned from his work there. He could be cutting a girl open, minding his own business, when one of the disgusting little fuckers would land on his arm and freak him the hell out.

He must've killed a hundred of them so far.

Whistling, he entered the darkness and set down the small tray of juice and supplements he had been holding. His shoes scuffed on the smooth concrete floor, echoing in the silence. It gave him the creeps. He knew the history of the place. Charlie told him it had been used as a refuge for Ishballans in the eighteen hundreds; supposedly, thousands had packed themselves in to escape the war during the period. Oh, no. Amestris had attempted genocide on many occassions. Once was not enough.

The Ishballans were clever. They transformed the place into a cramped, underground city, fitted with running water, cold storage rooms for food, and furnaces to burn the dead. Once the Ishballans had been sniffed out, the military put the furnaces to good use, and packed the fuckers in before turning up the heat. He admired the organizational methods of the State. Very resourceful.

Really, the place creeped him out. He considered himself a strong, well-rounded individual, with a few bloody escapades now and then. But he did believe in an afterlife, and he did believe in ghosts, and if anywhere was suited for a haunting, it was the catacombs.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out a shape on the opposite end of the room. He smiled as he detected the faint sounds of crying; the kid never slept, too disoriented and too drugged up to garner the need for it. Fear didn't help. And hell, how anyone could have slept in that place was beyond Frank.

He got down on his knees, pressing a weather-worn palm to the blond's head. Edward didn't respond to the touch; he was trembling, weakness, pain, and death overtaking him. He didn't have much time left. The drugs kept his heart beating, but even chemicals couldn't keep the child alive forever. In the end the strain would become too much.

"How are you doing, sweet?" Frank whispered in his ear, stroking his hair in a mockery of affection. "Good morning. Do you know what tonight is?" He smiled at the teens lack of comment, sniffing at his hair, engraving the scent in memory. "Tonight's the night you're going to die. And it'll be beautiful, just wait, you'll see. Charlie's thinking of letting Jean come along, too."

At that, Ed stiffened and stopped crying long enough to breathe. The flow of tears receded into a silent dribble. Words. What were words? Who was he and why was he here? Let me go back to the darkness. "Don't you bastards fucking touch him," he managed weakly.

Alphonse was next to him; he felt his presence, golden and ethereal, silent and yet judging. "I've been calling you, Ed. When are you coming home? Mommy misses you."

Frank chuckled, fingers curling around the boy's chin. He brought his face up, smirking at the lethargic cooperation. The boy's eyes of bronze had dimmed to lifelessness. Killing him would be a swift mercy; Frank wanted to see him suffer a little more. Sell him to the Xingese, like Charlie had pretended to intend. Lao-Lin had promised lots of money in exchange for the brat, as well as guaranteed lifelong pain for the kid himself.

He didn't understand why held so much animosity for the Elrics; maybe his malice was aimed at Mustang. Maybe he was just envious of all that pretty power and flesh. No one deserved it, least of all the sons of Hohenheim.

"Killing him would be too easy," he complained. "I want him to choose death. I want him to think he can save you, but we all know you're just going to die anyway. It'll be in vain."

"Do what you want with me," Ed said, cringing from pain, "but leave him out of it. He doesn't deserve half of what I do." He looked to his right from the corner of his eyes, chin still in Frank's unslacking grip. Alphonse's expression didn't change. He looked slightly sad, transparent, with a bloody dark glow about him. He almost wasn't real. Couldn't be touched.

"Have you seen my crayons? Did you break them? Mommy'll be mad at you."

"He might not deserve it, but is it relevant?" Frank let his fingers roam, digits that had memorized every bit of Edward's body, inside and out. They knew where to feel the boy's heartbeat; knew what made him twitch and squirm or breathe harder. Knew how to make him writhe. He smirked, caressing the hollow of the blond's throat, the pulse that thrummed there.

Edward breathed shakily, goose flesh spreading everywere. He had learned to hold still and not look away. Frank applied more pressure, more fingers, until he heard Ed give a small choking gasp of protest. He pushed forward, slowly easing the back of the boy's head against the wall, entranced by the smooth column of his throat and the soft hair framing it.

"Suffocation's my favorite way to kill," Archer revealed calmly, a mad light dancing in his eyes. Edward trembled harder, staring at him as if in a disjointed state of reality. Normally he might have fought; this time he didn't, just letting the tears fill up his eyes as if the gold were sponge. "You can really feel a life fading when you strangle someone. You know that?"

Edward swallowed, tensing up as he felt his esophogus painfully rub up against the man's hand. "How would you know?" Alphonse held up a small black crayon; the paper was blue. It had been snapped in half, small fragments in his palm.

"How disappointing," the younger boy said, letting them drop to the ground. They didn't make a sound, and when Ed moved his eyes to look, they'd disappeared.

Frank sat still for a moment, as if shocked, and then laughed with his teeth. "You don't know where I've been all night, do you?"

Edward shook his head, drawing his legs close up to his chest and putting his arms around them.

"Well," Frank answered matter-of-factly, "first I took Riza back home. She was getting cold, so I decided to warm her back up. I was a real gentleman. Carried her, let her in the door, laid her down in a chair. Then my chivalry reminded me. I haven't seen my wife in a while." He licked his lips. "Ask me what I did."

"What did you do?"

"My wife was nagging me like a _bitch. _Sceaming, yelling, crying. I hate that kind of noise. So I did what any man would have done. I killed her. But don't worry," he said to the horrified look on Edward's face, "you'll get your turn."

Ed managed a brief glance at Alphonse; the boy's expression had turned fearful. "Break."

In an instant, he found himself on the ground, air knocked out of his lungs in a flash of bone-crushing pain. He struggled against Frank's body weight. The man breathed heavily, grinding down into him, hands on his wrists. Tried to scream. Rough hands locked around his throat, and all he could do, _all _he could do, was choke and sputter, clawing at the fingers as if he could actually pry them lose.

Tension wrote itself in lines across Archer's blood-red face, his eyes wide, the pupils dilated, oxygen coming in short breathy gasps from between gray lips. Edward stared into that face for a long while, or not a long while, depending on who was watching. He felt himself stiffen and writhe and suck on dioxide, tears running down his cheeks and onto the man's dirty hands on his throat, cutting off his life.

Alphonse was gone.

Ed felt a sensation like severe cough in his esophogus, but there wasn't any air to cough up. The sticky itchiness pervaded his every thought, that every twinge of aching suffering in his chest reminded him that he was slowly dying, succumbing to the man's strength and every little bit of evil.

He couldn't...

God, he was dying.

He could feel it.

Life was seeping out of him like water from a jar; he remembered watching his mother do laundry, finally tossing the dirty water out the window, where it ran into the grass and disappeard down the hill. He remembered asking, mommy, where does that water go? Where does anything go? Where does a shooting star go when it's not in the sky?

Where did daddy go, and why isn't he coming back? Why did _you _go mommy? I can bring you back. I swear I can. Peraps I should have come to you instead.

His thoughts bled into one another; unconsciousness slowly took him, dragged him deep into silent oblivion. He swore he saw hell, but once he regained a stream of any thought at all, he'd forgotten all about it. The crying of a thousand infants. The flap of a thousand wings. The collective noises of the world, brought together, a catholic resonation.

He was with Mustang, in a garden. It went dead; Mustang shot him in the head, and he fell back into the weeds, blood spurting from the wound.

Alphonse, please give these flowers to mom. I'm sorry for melting your crayons. I'm sorry that you died before me; that isn't how it's supposed to work. But what is death, anyway?

White hot pain in his chest

_He pulled it out_

_Red, sticky, hot_

_"Fucker got me in the chest!"_

_Long knife, serrated edge_

_Collapsed. _

_Not the first time _

_Not the last time_

_"Fullmetal, I have a request." _

_"Yes, Colonel I-don't-give-a-fuck?" _

_Smile_

_"Don't die." _

He woke up. Concrete walls, blood on his hand, broken ribs, bruised throat, aching lungs. Looked up; Charlie's face, so much like Mustang's, but for the chunk of meat ripped out and left to bleed. He felt a rough, warm hand on his forehead. Blinked against it. Heard voices, foggy and distant.

"You nearly killed him," Charlie was saying, voice stony. He pulled his fingers from Ed's hair, making sure that life really did occupy the small body, and Ed caught sight of a syringe in the other. He moaned low in his throat, the images of his brief coma circulating in his head like nightmares or a past life. "Luckily his heart was still going. The heart's all that matters. I don't carry defibrillators, you know."

"I lost control," Archer apolgized from what sounded like the other end of the room. "I've done it before. It's not like I didn't know what I was doing."

Edward felt tears and sweat bead on his flesh, and raised his hand to his own face, feeling the flutter of his eyelashes. He breathed the sweet oxygen, feeding on all of its life-supporting properties. He was vaguely disappointed; he'd been so close to the doorway of what came after. He wanted to go back, wanted that warmth.

He started to cry, and that drew both men's attention.

Charlie stood up, throwing the teen a disgusted glance as he did so. He poised the needle so that it faced the red glow of light. Edward looked, through his tears, at the source; he realized he was back in the furnace room, and a calm fire raged behind the glass in the kiln. He'd been moved while unconscious, it seemed, though he wasn't excited at the prospect.

"So what do you want me to do? Thought you wanted to kill the kid."

"There are things I need to do to prepare for it. This isn't any murder. This is sacrifice. This is atonement. Killing the child must be done in a way that will please the holy, not anything more or less than that. If you have a problem with my methods, feel free to throw yourself in the river like you're meant to."

"Right," Archer said, rolling his eyes. "I'm sick and tired of your religious bullshit. You fucking nutjob. I told you I'd help you with the girls, I kept Hidel off our asses. The man believed whatever bullshit we fed him. Surely that means something. I should get a little something back!"

"I've let you desecrate him to a point of madness; what more could you possible want?" Charlie turned to face Ed, his back to Archer. The blond cringed, remaining absolutely still to avoid provoking him. He wanted the man to stay focused on Frank; didn't need that hard anger directed at him.

"A taste of your own goddamn madness." Frank looked over the tray of tools, medicines, and supplements he had brought in with him. Ed saw him quietly pick up a small scalpel, brandishing it in his hand like a blade. Fear was like a current of electricity, but it waned when he saw the man's eyes were on the back of Charlie's head.

"My madness cannot be understood."

"Then maybe you need to choke on it."

Frank swung the scalpel in the air, aiming to dig it deep in Charlie's back, but the tables turned before any of them seemed to realize it. Charlie stepped out of the way, grabbing hold of the man's thick muscular arm and twisting it behind his back in a fashion that seemed disproportional to his strength. Edward closed his eyes; Charlie stabbed Archer in the neck with the syringe, pressing down and letting the drug out.

Edward tried to block out the screams.

"It's life-saving to him," the man explained calmly, watching as Archer thrashed, crashing into the cart and spilling supplies all over the floor. Frank put his hand to his neck, trying to stop the flow of blood. His pulse stood out from strain. "But to a perfectly healthy man it's poison. How's your heart?"

Archer cried out in response, every muscle writhing beneath his flesh in visible twisting horror. The sound of tissue rearranging itself was a sickening squelch; veins erupted from his flesh in showers of blood. He stumbled around, yelling like an invalid, running into walls and still trying vainly to stop blood from coming out his throat.

"How does it feel to choke?" Charlie asked, completly indifferent. "How does it feel to suffocate, to scream, to feel pain? You don't know the half of it. You kill, you rape, you feed into your darkest desires. That is your weakness, Frank Archer. You're too afraid to let go."

Edward sat up, and crawled away towards a corner, the cool caress of concrete a sort of sanctuary for the horrors unfolding. He nuzzled against the wall, smelling the archaic reaches of cement; wondered if this was how the Ishballans had felt when they, too, found santuary in the darkness.

"Now," Charlie said, walking over to the furnace and opening the door. The light in the room increased tenfold; a long aisle of hell carpeted the smooth floor. Heat descended upon them, a wind hotter than any desert, a smell like burning air. "Let go."

He got behind Frank and pushed, letting the man stumble into hell. The flames roared up as they found new meat, new sacrifice, rushed about him like he was dry wood. Little claws and hands, like the beings in the Gate, they dragged him down into a white-hot abyss the color of blood and damnation. Charlie closed the door with a loud bang; it seemed there were a thousand men screaming.

Smoke clouded the small window in the door.

Edward watched the fire burn; Charlie locked the door, pulling the metal bar across. Ed felt a small bit of happiness, glee, at watching those flames, those dancing little creatures, liked listening to the screams of Frank Archer echo in the metal walls. The hands that had touched him, the hands that had held him down, were burning away. Disintegrating.

He jumped in fright as a black, smoking face pressed itself up against the glass, mouth a gaping hole emanating unholy sacraments. Fingers clawed at the small pane, boiling blood running down, fingers snapping off (like crayons) into the fires. The body became a caricature; unrecognizable, unable to be discerned from any other decayed corpse. And yet.

It screamed.

Perhaps decay had found another meaning.

Edward smiled to himself, letting a moth perch upon his head. He felt indescribably...

Free.


	33. Evanescence

**Warnings: Violence, gore, graphic torture, animal abuse, racism, strong language, sexual implications, general nastiness****, ****a cliffhanger****.**

**This chapter kind of...sucks. I was tired when I finished it. :/  
**

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* * *

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He felt the cogs of his mind beginning to rust. They creaked and created friction as they turned, umber dust abandoning the screeching metal into the recesses of his skull. He breathed deep, inhaling the scent of cream and coffee bean. Closed his eyes, and very gently shifted the contents of the mug so that more steam entered his nostrils.

Roy liked this place. It was quiet and he felt at home. Blood streaks stained the walls, grime sticking between the cracks in the floor tiles. Fat hogs with wild, blind eyes hung from hooks on the ceiling, and chicken carcasses lined every flat surface, their innards piled like discarded paper in a small receptacle. Blood was a sweet, troubling scent, somewhere between vomit and sugar. It smelled like Ishbal.

He carried the mug of coffee as he stepped over butchered carcasses, flies biting at his knuckles and cheekbones. A swinging light bulb brushed his head as he walked under it, its weak heat intensifying the drip of nervous sweat. His eyes swept the room he entered. It was not entirely unpleasant, with walls that had chipping paint of lime, and carpet that smelled like mildew. A crying dog lay in the corner, a bullet in its leg.

A plump, blind man sat sobbing, bound, and gagged in a chair.

Roy shut the door; bolted it. "I'm sure you've guessed why you're in this predicament, Thomas Randon," he said calmly, testing the door to make sure there would be no interruptions. The man did not answer him. His mouth was covered with blood-and-rot soaked gauze, ripped from a gratuitously injured hand. "What I seek is supposedly in some sort of cellar. But I see no cellar."

The dog whimpered, licking his wounds. His fur was matted with sweat and sticky red.

"The truth is," Roy said, walking apathetically past the animal, "I'm short on time. Torturing you for their whereabouts could take hours. Things will be much faster and less painful if you comply."

He set his coffee down on a counter surface, and then withdrew a pair of rubber butchering gloves hanging out of his pocket. He put them on, fixing them firmly around his lower arms. He did not enjoy the feeling of blood on his skin, and from Randon's silence even without the makeshift gag, he was sure there would be plenty of it.

He stared at his victim; gauging his strengths, his weaknesses. He estimated how long the man would be able to survive. Given the condition of his meat shop, and the state of Randon's health, he doubted the pain threshold would be high. But there were also complications. Roy knew that civilians of Randon's stature rarely bled more than a few minutes before succumbing to death, and that figure would be decimated if he was not careful.

He had not partaken in this sort of interrogation in a very long time, not since Ishbal, and even then he had merely been an overseer; he knew enough about technique, about eliciting the right responses, but as for physically applying torture to a human being? He was practically a novice. He did not like to cause people more pain than necessary, even if his main method of murder was burning.

To be honest, he would rather have burned Randon, but there were problems with that as well. The smell of burning might carry to the customers outside, and in his present state, Roy did not want to take things too far. It would be all too easy to picture this man as Frank Archer or the faceless Charlie; too easy to burn him to a crisp before any information slipped past his lips.

No. No the method had to fit the environment. This sort of torture required him to think, which would save both of them.

Thomas stared straight ahead. Twin irises, the color of milk, frightening and clouded, stared out of the beefy red face. Roy remembered, with a small, nostalgic smile, that Edward didn't drink milk. Such sweet innocence, despite the violence that wanted to take him prisoner. Roy swallowed convulsively, and then ripped away a patch of gauze so that Randon could speak if he so chose. He didn't.

"A woman in the slums said that you were harboring fugitives. Her kin, and as you know, Ishballans are not allowed to set foot in Amestris. If you were caught, you would be convicted of a felony and put to death. I understand what is at stake." He kept his tone even and painstakingly polite, even as his words ventured into darker territory. He smiled grimly. "I assure you, I will kill you myself if you don't cooperate."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Randon sputtered, chest heaving. It was a rather disgusting sight, in all honesty. Roy wondered if a bullet in that belly would puncture anything but yellow fat. "Never even seen an Ishballan. Wouldn't hide them if my life depended on it! Now untie me, you son of a bitch-"

"How many health inspections have you failed?" A fly danced around Roy's head. He took a sip of his coffee before putting it back on the counter, a ring of water displacing grime. Drinking, and smiling, during interrogations were nervous habits. Smiling discouraged guilty tears, and the smell of coffee eased the filter of blood. "Just curiosity. Your blindness, as observed by one Lieutenant Colonel Elric, was a result of infection, was it not?"

"That pretentious _brat. _I hope you wrecked him, buried him deeper than six feet. Little fucker was a nightmare, all of these questions, you'd think he'd been-"

All soldiers, in this particular field of military brutality, needed to treat their victims as objects. As tools. They were machines, and if you pressed the right buttons, commands would be obeyed. The human psyche could be trained to deal with pain, to manipulate it into something positive, but it could never ignore it entirely. Objectifying Thomas Randon should have been easy, but it was not.

Because despite the underlying rage he felt as the man continued to insult Edward with every derogatory name in the book, Roy saw the man as human. This was a civilian atmosphere. There were people bustling on the sidewalks outside (perhaps not at that moment, given the manhunt for Central's 'terrorist'), and there was no one shouting at him here, in this room.

_Now, now, Colonel Mustang. I know that this pretty young thing is just a child. But she knows_

_Where_

_The rebels _

_Hide_

_Son of a - _

_She doesn't need her fingernails, Mustang!_

_Stop sparing the weak_

_And treat them_

_The same_

_As_

If he couldn't objectify Thomas Randon, he might be able to see him as an animal.

"My family owned a farm back in Xing," Roy said, almost conversationally. This was a half-truth. Although he vaguely remembered his mother growing vegetables in a small garden, it could hardly be called a farm. And they had never lived in Xing. "Have you ever been to Xing, my dear friend?"

Randon shook his head, eyes wide though he could not see. "Beautiful country; better than it is here, I've heard."

Roy took up the gleaming knife on the counter, its sharp blade meant for hacking at the muscle tissue of cows. "Beautiful country indeed. We had a hog, just like you. A pink, pudgy thing with two eyes the color of creamed corn." He snickered, pointing the edge of the knife so that it rested square center on Randon's forehead. "Bullet to the brain."

"You don't scare me," Randon spit, teeth black with age and lack of care. Blood dribbled down his forehead and the blade of the knife, like a lining of red on silver. "You goddamn child-fucker."

Roy bristled at that statement, but caught himself before he did anything drastic. For a tempting moment, he considered cutting the man's throat, but he pulled the knife away, leaving blood to pool into lifeless eyes. "I'll have you know that the child I fucked was well over the age of consent."

He closed his eyes, remembering days when he'd come back to the tent and comfort his youngest, blood-soaked hands marring the strands of gold hair. This had been a bad idea. Even with only a knife as a weapon, he was lethal, trained to kill. His thoughts swam in scarlet waves. Edward smiled, but not at him, and before he could reach out and ask why the boy bled through the spaces of cerebellum into something intangible.

"Screwing your ward, like the filthy floss-eyed piece of shit you are. Really dislike that kid. I hope you fucked him dead-"

"Strong words there, piggy," Roy muttered. Anger bristled beneath his skin, making his muscles twitch reflexively. The words were painful because they were true, and although Randon seemed to have divested most of his information from public television networks, his brash interpretation cut close to the heart.

Fear calmed the turbulent waters of rage. A seizure of images entrapped him, all coming from an unconscious stream he had thus far ignored. He had discerned from passing people on the street (in their ignorance, never recognizing him) that Riza Hawkeye had been brutally murdered. An overwhelming sense of helpless sadness, though, paled in comparison to the idea that Charlie might be doing the same damn thing to Ed.

Might have already done it, said a little voice. Might have already dismembered him.

No. Charlie had promised him he would see Ed again. And Roy trusted that, despite all of the warnings that he shouldn't.

Randon squirmed in his restraints, fingers like sausages wriggling free of their packaging. Roy realized the man was still carrying on, caught up in a senseless, hateful tirade. "Little blond bitch probably wanted it, didn't he? Bet you made him call you daddy, didn't-"

Roy eyed the man's beefy thigh. In less time than it took to blink, he threw down the butchering knife, its edge embedding itself deep in Randon's leg. Blood spurted crimson, a squelching among howls of pain. Roy knew the blade had hit bone; could tell from the hardness he had encountered when he had made contact. Blood was like cool water washing away the grime on his gloves.

"I've skinned a hog before," Roy continued calmly. "Every summer my father would kill one and drag it out back. Filthy things would squeal until that definitive bullet. His sons would prepare it for consumption. I think I might skin you, for nostalgia's sake."

Randon's breath stuttered, blood trickling down his leg in dark streams. Purple, red, black, discolored muscle tissue and the faint yellow-white of bone and marrow. "Bastard! Disgusting, wretched slime!"

"You will not talk about him in such a manner," Roy whispered. "You are nothing to me. I could put the gag back on. Mutilate you to a point where I could sell you to your pitiful customers and not one of them would notice the difference. Now, the Ishballans you're hiding. Where are they?"

He could practically taste Edward on his lips. He licked them with a pink flash of tongue, savoring his memories. A golden sweep of warm hair. Soft, pure as the sweetest oxygen after ten years underground. Roy's other half was alive somewhere, scarlet life in beautiful veins, aurelean eyes like the windows of heavenly light. He would sacrifice this man, Thomas Randon, in blood to find the angel that haunted his nightmares; his dreams.

Edward would not be marred by callous words. Would not be disrespected by this fool, blinded by consumption. And most of all, Edward would be found _breathing. _

Roy wrenched the knife out of Randon's leg, screams like the calls of a thousand dying blackbirds. As those screams subsided, lumps of fat and flesh were scrutinized. He wanted to stab him, over and over again, until the fucker resembled the animal carcasses left to rot on rusting hooks. The objective, Roy told himself. Randon was not to be murdered.

He wished he had a bottle of red serum.

He took up the knife, its wood handle rubbing up against his gloves. When the blade touched Randon's fleshy arm, the bleeding man stiffened and let out a little sob. Biting his lip, Roy shaved his arm close, watching the flesh curl into something like an onion peel, pale and sickly. Blood dripped from the wound as more desperate screams rebounded painfully in his ears.

"I know it hurts," Roy whispered, watching tears fall down the grown man's face with something like amusement. "I know." He did know.

He continued like that, peeling bits of flesh here and there, all external, all pale. He never got to any skin layers that mattered; no veins were disrupted. But still Randon kept his mouth shut, cursing and frothing and biting and bitching. Roy sighed, realizing that this wasn't going to be a simple matter of cut-and-tell.

He wiped his mouth with his arm, looking at his handiwork. The man in the chair twisted around in the restraints, his body sporting pink and crimson lacerations, deep cuts that formed letters of the alphabet in choice areas. "Talk!" Roy commanded, voice deep and booming. His grip tightened on the knife.

He did not want to go to extremes. He only wanted to find his kid.

"Never! You son of a whore! You putrid, stinking fuck! I hope that _bitch _you killed told you what a worthless, lousy fuck you-"

His lip twitched. His eyes were drawn to the deep, bruising wound on Randon's leg. Purple blood had pooled beneath the skin, while a blanket of blackening blood dried and clung to the pale remnants of torn muscle.

"-I hope your mother _died _when you left her cu-"

Roy dug the blade back under the skin, beneath the translucent flesh of Randon's leg so that his blade played games with purple bruise. The sound of severing muscle squelched sickeningly like a soaked mop hitting a linoleum floor. He heard muscle tear as he worked the blade under the flesh, deeper, deeper, further, further, thick layers of skin tearing themselves with all of the dexterity of trash bags.

Screams were like the ones he had heard during the war.

Shrill, desperate, pained, dying.

_Heat flared within, driving him on. _

_Blood stained Alphonse's grave; the white stone sporting a crimson hand print when his brother tried to stop it all from happening.  
_

_"Fuck, stop!" Ed was screaming at him, trying, even then, to push him off; away. Out. "Please, please stop..." _

_Pieces. _

_He hated to think it_

_Hated to think that he liked hearing those screams. _

_Reminded him of_

_Just how powerful he was_

_To be able to_

_Reduce him_

_To this. _

He saw the white of bone under a residue of blood. A slab of meat, pink and red and black, produced itself, until Roy had stripped the femur naked. The kneecap was a mesh of smaller bones, blood, and the stringy wires of tendon.

When he had completely severed the chunk of flesh, he held it up like a belt for the man to see, bouncing it along his hands and willing down the throaty nausea that threatened to spill out. A good foot of flesh about an inch thick in his gloved hands. "How much do you think human flesh would sell in a shop like this?" Roy asked loudly against the continuing screams. His neck prickled as he wondered if anyone could hear them.

Thomas stared at the uncovered bone of his leg, screaming as if he could will the skin back on. His hands were like claws in the restraints, twisting and curling, veins sticking out on the back. The man threw his head back and wailed, beating his skull on the back of his chair. His blind eyes were moist and wide. He'd become a frightening caricature of himself.

"Below!" Randon shouted when Roy made to cut him again. "Below!" His voice had gone hoarse, an inhuman sort of cry shrill from pain and overuse.

He was talking, and there were no flurries of insults interspersed. Roy didn't know how much longer he would be able to stand this blood-soaked atmosphere; vomit, thick and acidic, was blocked only by his teeth and lips. He spit it out on the ground, gagging just a bit more and letting the rest of his stomach empty itself. He dropped Randon's flesh on the ground, and it hit the concrete like slapping wet rags. He did not get off on other people's pain.

"How do I get below?" Roy asked, wiping his mouth again. Tears of saliva dribbled down his chin. He put the knife on the counter, stumbling against it, and held his coffee to his lips as if it were water and he hadn't had a drink in three days. The scent of coffee beans, bitter, but sweet. Blood from his gloves stained the edges of the mug, touched his lips, but he paid it no attention; he was trembling far too badly to do anything about it.

"Trapdoor...trapdoor under the carpet." Randon nodded his head towards a dirty Persian rug in the corner, and then returned to sobbing, sweat blanketing his face. Welts had developed on his wrists, bleeding in some places, where he had struggled too fiercely to get away. "Ceiling's five feet, at best. They have weapons."

Roy went straight for the bandages lying next to Randon on the floor. Ignoring the pained cries of the man (and the clog of tears in his own throat), he made to wrap the wounds tight in the old cotton fabric. The least he could do now was make sure the man didn't bleed to death. Randon would probably go into shock, but Roy didn't care enough to treat him for it.

"They'll kill me," Randon sobbed. "They'll kill me now that someone knows. They'll kill me!"

"I'll kill them first," Roy said reassuringly. "I'm something of an expert at killing their kind." He took off the gloves, and tossed them somewhere dark. Killing and killing and killing; the killing never ended. Sure, he'd taken an appropriate break from slaughter for a while, enough time to assault Edward into next century. But he could not escape his destiny.

Fire, ash, bullets, brawn, casings of sand, melted glass, burning children, boiling tears, secret smiles, secret fears, desolate, demanding, strangulation, fornication, admiration, a syllabus, a web, a design, broiled fetus under the shine of a crimson star (so very far) and yet, so near. So near.

"The dog...help him...please, he's all I have. He's all I have."

Roy bit his lip. He hadn't meant to shoot the dog, but as soon as he'd gone for Randon, the fucker had attacked his arm. He went over to the dog, pained by the whines in his ear. "Just got him in the leg," Roy said quietly.

He ignored the yips and howls as he stuck his fingers in the wound. He dug around (carefully), until he latched onto the hard metal casing of his own bullet. Once that was done and out, he wrapped the dog's leg in gauze as he had done with the owner.

He began his descent into the hell of the poverty.

* * *

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to make it to the family's Easter reunion," Jean mumbled into the phone's mouthpiece, a weak smile gracing his features. Thoughts of candy, decorated eggs, and the obscurity of an ancient religion's myths seemed so far away and innocent. Especially at police headquarters. "You feeling up to it? I know the kids drive you up a wall."

"I don't know how many nieces and nephews I have at this point," his sister said. "Lost count after the fourteenth. All of them are bastards anyway. Enough about that, though. Been worried sick ever since I found out you were in that hospital that blew up."

"It didn't blow up, exactly." Jean adjusted his stance, pressing his back against the wall. His guards were in the same room, fingering their weapons as usual, but he was so accustomed to their presence that his conversation felt relatively normal. "A rouge alchemist burned half of it down. But I got out okay."

"Were you hurt?"

"Nah. A little smoke inhalation." He didn't mention getting shot in the woods, or witnessing mass murder, or Edward's kidnapping. Those things would only complicate matters, and he wanted a bit of simplicity. Just for one moment, he wanted to pretend that everything was okay. "I didn't even get treated. Started working on the case soon as the irritation wore off."

"Jean," Jane said. She coughed a little bit, probably from smoking. Something she shouldn't have been doing. But when the hell did she ever do what she was told? "The fuck are you doing? Mom would have a heart attack if she knew the shit you're getting into. This is the investigation department's job, isn't it?"

He rubbed the back of his head with his free hand, wincing at the part about his mother. She would have a heart attack; if he died, Jane would have nothing to leech off of. "Yeah, but most of investigations has been incapacitated. The fuhrer wants me on this case, Jane. Don't know why exactly. But I want to do it. It's hurt a lot of people close to me."

"Soldiers?"

"Friends. Anyway, I got to go. Put that cigarette out."

"Fuck off, man." But she put it out.

He smiled again, and then put the phone on the cradle. Once that was done, he nodded for his guards, and they began the long trek down the hallway towards the west wing of the investigation's bureau. Sunlight shone through panes of glass, and the occasional cop or intern would pass by, throwing him an awkward smile from behind whatever they were reading.

Clouds full of ice and snow still blanketed most of Central City's skyline, but for a brief moment, light had broken through. It was a mockery of all the things he'd seen. Although passerby smiled, he saw the lizard-like distortions their faces made once they recognized him. Heard whispers in the walls. Voices.

_Tomorrow there'll be a sign but you won't like it, tomorrow there'll be a sign but you won't like it._

"Can't keep anyone safe, can you?" a young brunette said as she walked by, teeth glimmering white. She waved at him. "Pathetic."

His guards' stoic faces, as if the men hadn't heard it at all. Had he imagined it?

"You catch the game last night?" said one guard.

"Nah. Those eastern teams got nothing on us," said the other.

Jean's fingers curled against his palms, nails digging deep. The wings of flies against walls, tap, tap, tap. He'd heard somewhere that sticks of gum helped offset nicotine cravings. And why, why was it that people all looked the same when you wanted nothing more than to-

"-_murder_, I tell ya. Don't think too bad on the chinks. They can hit a ball just as well as-"

Whenever he was a child, he had imagined the sound of steam in his ears whenever he was angry, just like in those cartoons on television. His mother had never liked the violence. Said she would rather he smoke-

"-weed them out of the poor districts, like I've been telling my officer for years. Just tear-gas the fuck out of them Ishballan camel jockeys and they'll come crawling out of the woodwork-"

Well, he'd smoked quite a lot. Inhaled markers, pens, cleaning supplies. Burned hash and snorted Xingese opiates to get his kicks. Sex was always better under the influence of a drug, but no one had ever believed him. Karma had wanted to try it, though she was already high at the-

"-time! Damn it! Fucking six-thirty, these days are gonna be the death of me." The guard looked up from his watch. They had arrived in a corridor darker than the others, and this one was empty. Jean recognized it, but he was too afraid to say anything; memories of sex, and pleas, and crying when she decided to-

"Wake up."

There was a hand in his face. He jumped, startled, and blinked away soggy eye sludge. "I didn't rape her."

The guard gave him a funny look. Hint of a leering smile. "Well, someone did before they ripped her body half to pieces. You feeling okay, _sir_?"

Half to. What? "Oh." Riza Hawkeye; this was the forensics lab. Penny and Breda were waiting for him. Right. "You guys gonna wait for me out here?"

They shrugged, so he swallowed one more time and then opened the door. The bitter scent of dyes and fluid filled his nostrils, but it was too late to turn back and embrace the sunshine. He closed the door behind him, sniffling slightly, a cold chill creeping along his shoulders. Gravid silence weighed upon his ears.

The room was dark. Blue light shone on one laboratory surface. Small petri dishes and apparatuses were mostly cerulean. As for the human occupants, they blended in, flesh a hallowed oceanic tone. Jean almost didn't recognize Penny in her lab coat, or Breda sitting in the corner, looking dejected. Like the rug had been torn out from under him, but he stayed on the ground. Wondering why.

"About time you showed up," Penny said, her back to Jean. He could see the band where her safety goggles wrapped around her chestnut colored hair. She stood in front of the same table that had held General Hidel's corpse just a day before. Another body-sized lump supplemented the space, but it was covered in a sheet. One small mercy among few.

He accepted the sanitary mask she handed him, and strapped it on his face. He nodded at Breda, whose head was buried in his hands. "So what's the story? You figure out how she died?" Oh, Riza. She was missed. He felt like it should be her standing next to him, blond locks tied back in a barrette. Not the young forensic scientist. Not Penny.

"Do you want to see her?" Penny asked, not making eye contact. It was supposed to be a friendly gesture, Jean supposed, but it was lost on the fact that Riza was fucking dead.

"No, I don't wanna see her," Jean snapped. "Just do your job and tell me what I need to know."

"Severed artery. Her throat was cut before she was dismembered." Spoken abruptly, as if the woman knew what lines she had crossed but didn't know how to rectify the situation.

"Oh. Well thank God for that." And Breda's sarcasm was hard to miss.

"I finished the rape kit and analyzed the DNA. There were two different types on the lieutenant's body alone." Penny opened her laptop on another sterilized metal counter-top. Her movements made the sheet on the table whisper and move like the body breathed.

"Two types?"

"While the hospital took DNA swabs from Edward, Martin and I collected whatever we could find at the major's apartment. Just now I cross-examined the loci in all three samples. Two samples matched in all thirteen loci. However, I took several swabs for the lieutenant's kit based on your suspicions of a co-conspirator, Jean; the results are disturbing."

"What are they?" Jean asked. He tried to steal a glance at the documents on her computer, but he couldn't understand them. His eyes kept flitting back to the lumpy form on the table, knowing that it was his coworker. Knowing it was the woman he'd kissed.

"One sample didn't match at all," Penny said quietly. "However, I remembered that all soldiers' gene information is stored in the computer system in cases like this. I compared the sample's loci with Frank Archer's stored gene information."

"And?" Breda said, head still in his palms. His first utterance seemed without hope, a mere question that didn't beg for an answer. Jean wanted to reach out and comfort him, but Heymans was not an emotional man. Edward was the closest he had ever come to loving a child, the closest he'd come to watching someone grow up, and the very real possibility of murder had turned him into something impenetrable.

"Perfect match." She closed her eyes. "Which means that Archer was alive for longer than we thought, if he isn't alive now. He was alive long enough to rape Hawkeye, at any rate, and given the state of the sample, it probably happened in the last forty-eight hours."

"So he and Mustang were working together," Breda muttered, a deep frown shadowing his features. "Explains why we haven't found a body. Explains why those pictures were able to be taken in a moving car. Explains everything, really, including the hospital scenario."

"I heard them talking in the hallway before the explosion," Jean recalled. "They were totally antagonistic towards each other. I know they both wanted Ed, but they'd never go so far as to reach a fucking compromise."

"It was a setup." Breda eyed him angrily, as if cursing him for daring to speak up. "Archer gave Roy a pen to break out with, according to the nurse supervising. Archer got into Edward's room because he was the only one that could. Archer must have gotten the drugs that killed Fuery from Mustang, the drug addict."

"It's undeniable, Jean," Penny said sadly, watching as the blond man's face continued to fall. "I know Mustang was your friend, but there's too much evidence to the contrary. Think about the victims."

Her brown hair appeared gray in the blue lighting. Once again, she was clacking away at computer keys, manicured nails gleaming. The document 'grocery list' was pulled up on the screen. Jean's eyes were drawn to it, the black letters that appeared to mean nothing; appearances, as he knew, could be deceiving.

"A few months after Roy Mustang's unit was released from service, the first two Charleston victims were found. Their corpses had been rotting for an undetermined amount of time." She clicked an inconspicuous link in the document, labeled 'two medium sized tomatoes.' A window appeared on the computer screen, illuminating the blue darkness with the image of a middle-aged man and woman, strung by the wrists with barbed wire. Their bodies were black as ash from rot.

Jean swallowed moisture. "They were killed in a town along the road back home. Would have been easy for Mustang to kill them and get out quick," he admitted.

Penny nodded, closing the window. "Their wounds were not entirely gratuitous. Compared to the other victims, remarkable. At this time, Mustang was probably experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder; given the extent of the ordeal in Ishbal, it's safe to assume he might have been suffering from hallucinations and paranoia during his stay in the town."

"First kill," Breda commented darkly, not looking at anything in particular. "Go on."

"The shoes. You pointed out the brand and size discrepancies, but it's a small issue. Anyone can steal a pair of shoes, Havoc. It's hardly a good defense. Now, as for the rest of the victims." She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and then clicked on a link labeled 'angel hair pasta.' Several subsequent images filled the screen; before and after pictures, mockeries of television commercials. The faces of young women alongside their endings.

"All of them blond," Penny said quietly, as if the fact were muted. "We know now why they might have been targeted. Their deaths fit his patterns of thought, the events in his life. Morgan Tate was punctured repeatedly with a meth needle. Alphonse Elric was killed near a drug epicenter. At the crime scene in your bathroom, there was writing on the wall-"

"About the eyes. About the gold. I know." He raked his fingers through his hair. Something like a sob escaped him. "I know." But he couldn't believe it. "And the military fibers on her body. I know."

"He was frustrated." Breda's voice choked into an uncharacteristic whimper. His eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, a breath stuttering in his throat. "He wanted to kill Ed but he didn't want to get caught doing it. So he took it out on these kids. These girls without families. Guess in the end, once he was found out, he didn't care anymore. Went for the real thing."

"Don't say that." Jean's hands clenched, and he shut his eyes tight, not wanting to think about those ghostly images flickering in his brain. His body trembled and his knees locked up and he really wished he could smoke something, even if it ended up hurting him. "Don't you fucking say that!"

Breda stood up in an instant, the chair scraping back on tile. His face was pinched in confused anger; he didn't know who to direct it at. Just knew, deep down inside, that he was chasing a lost cause. "You know he's dead!" the red-haired man shouted, voice echoing on metal instruments and dead matter. "You know Mustang's got him buried six feet deep somewhere and we're not going to find him! We're not going to _want _to find him."

"_I_ want to find him! Even if there's nothing left!"

"How the fuck do you know what you want?" Heymans' eyes were leaking; what a strange concept tears were. "You weren't there when Hughes found the girls. In the rivers. In the trenches. You weren't there when they pulled his burned body out of that car. You weren't _there _when Ed was picking apart his brother, trying to figure out just what cut killed him-"

"I was there when I could stomach it, not all of us chase this shit-"

"And you keep defending his killer!"

"He's not dead!"

"Look at what he did to her!" In one swift movement, Breda tore the sheet from the body on the table. Silence ran its length like the tremors of an earthquake, most potent in the center of the small laboratory.

Jean tried to look away, but he couldn't manage even that. Pale, rotting flesh, clumps of tissue and black blood. He missed her eyes, red like he'd heard the stone described as. Red as blood, which occupied the sockets, little caverns. He reached out to touch her face, stroking her cold hair and the mutilated patches. He remembered it being so much softer than it was now, and didn't want to think that...

Didn't want to think that...

"Don't cry, Jean."

The blond felt telltale wetness sliding down his cheeks, but he was more intently focused on the remains of a would-be lover. "I can't." Edward looked like this, somewhere. His body had shut down. Had gone cold, and hard, like child's dough. Golden eyes bleached white from rot. Hair lost its shimmer, and summer. Summer had bled itself out. Gone to dust.

A hand touched his shoulder. He pushed Heymans away, and pushed himself away. Pushed it all away. "Don't touch me." He ripped the sanitation mask off of his face, glad to be rid of the dry cotton, and tossed it on the floor. As he walked away, he stepped on it, the sound like crushing lilies.

A shadow in his path.

"You've got a call, colonel," his guard said impatiently, bald head shining like a gross lantern. His lazy eyes touched the clock on the wall. He sighed, handing the cell phone to Jean. "Says he's a relative of yours, concerned about your involvement in the terrorist explosion. Keep the details to yourself. We'll be listening."

Jean nodded, not breaking eye contact; too distanced from emotion to know what he was doing. He took the phone and turned away, wondering who, besides Jane, would ever bother to call him. A frail hope, very frail indeed, persisted. Perhaps his father was taking the time to ask about him after all? Perhaps his father had left drink alone to ask on his son's life. "Dad?"

His heart sank. He didn't recognize the voice. "Don't speak a word unless I tell you to."

He didn't recognize it at all. "Who is this?"

"I suppose you can call me your guardian angel," the stranger said, voice smooth and charismatic but with a hint of cigarette smoke. His language was eloquent, but dangerously so, as if the man was very aware of his word choice and intended to use it to his advantage. "I have some information on the Charleston case that you may find intriguing."

Jean opened his mouth to speak, but the stranger shushed him with an appropriate series of sounds.

"Stay quiet or things will get very difficult. Your current commanding officer, Colonel Wong, is a planted assassin. He no longer works with me, but if he finds you doing anything questionable, he will not hesitate to kill you. Say 'I'll be sure to drop by' if you understand."

Jean let out a shuddering breath, growing more anxious by the second; his heart beat erratically in his chest. He didn't know who the man on the other line was, but he was certain he wasn't to be trifled with. Given the nature of things in government, he didn't doubt the assertion of Wong being an assassin, especially with his Xingese ancestry. He was reminded of the conversation at the restaurant on Charleston Street. "I'll be sure to drop by."

"Excellent." The man sounded pleased at his ability to obey orders. Like a good soldier, playing along helplessly for little else to do. "We're going to play a game. I think you'll rather enjoy it."

Jean gritted his teeth, stomach turning over. "I don't play games. This is a serious..." He trailed off, eyes fluttering nauseously closed as the man shushed him once again. All of his suspicions were culminating in this one definitive moment. He didn't know who this man was, or what he wanted, or even how he knew to contact him.

"The rules are really quite simple. It's going to be like a scavenger hunt, although instead of hunting trivial objects to get to the prize, you'll be going straight to it. Do you want to know what you'll win if you succeed? I'll give you a hint."

Jean clutched the phone more tightly, palms sweating.

"In the desert they called him the angel of death. Who do you think that could be?"

"Edward," Havoc breathed, eyes widening to bright-blue discs. He was about to drop the phone and run, to get them to tap the conversation, trace the call, when the laughter on the other end of the line quieted into decipherable words.

"Don't go anywhere," the stranger commanded. "I've got six needles full of drugs. I don't know what they do, but personally I'm willing to shove them all in his little body just to see. I'm betting the consequences will be explosive."

Jean pressed his lips together, sweat beading on his skin. Glimmering hope came in the form of tear droplets, things he wouldn't succumb to just yet. He had felt, deep down inside, that Mustang hadn't taken Edward after all. If that was true, and this stranger on the telephone really did have Ed, then he couldn't screw up his chances. For once, he needed to lie down and think of someone other than himself.

But what if it was just a prank? Could he really afford to listen to something he didn't believe for an instant? Yes. Yes he could. Because it was his only hope. Investigations had only brought him more and more misery, tarnishing the material Edward had worked so hard to find and arrange. The Charleston case must have been cursed.

"There's an old cathedral on Hill's Crest Road. It's been run-down and nearly abandoned for close to two decades, but I'm certain you know of its history? Perhaps not. In any case, I assume you know how to get there. There is a large stained glass window with an old religious figure on it. Say, 'how many do you want' if you understand."

"How many do you want?" The words poured out automatically, and he turned his head, seeing if anyone had noticed that things weren't as they seemed. But it was business as usual.

"You will not speak to anyone but your guards. Tell them you must take a leave of absence. Tell them that you are not feeling well. Tell them that you must go. If they resist, kill them. Leave the vicinity and travel, however possible, to the cathedral on Hill's Crest Road. If you are followed, or assisted, or accompanied, I will kill the boy. Say, 'of course' if you understand."

"Of course." It was hard not to cry now; the tears were building up like his throat was a dam. He took a look at his guards. He was sure they would try and resist him, but he was not entirely certain he would be able to kill them. Disarm? He could try, but he would not put lives at stake, especially innocent ones. Even for Edward's life, which may or may not have hung in the balance.

But how could he ask for proof when there was no way he could speak without jeopardizing Ed? "Can I be sure you'll pay me back?" he supplemented, closing his eyes in agitation. He willed the stranger to comply, to see the meaning beneath his words.

"Proof of life. How silly of me. Couldn't expect you, of all people, to buy into such a thing without evidence." There was silence for a moment or two; for a tortured, prolonged period of time, Jean feared the man had hung up the phone, leaving him with nothing. But then the man's voice wafted, unexpectedly, through the earpiece. "Ask him a question. Something only he would know. But be discreet."

Jean bit his lower lip; something only he and Ed would know. Something he could say, in this hallway, in this moment, without being overtly suspicious. He racked his brain. Those precious moments. Before work, after work, car pooling, that night at the crime scene, that day at the house, those nights spent soothing painful dreams. "The picture in my living room. Ask him. And ask him what never leaves. And ask him what the nurse thought."

More silence. Jean covered his mouth with his hand, breathing stiflingly against his own flesh. He didn't pray, but his stomach had twisted itself into formless, painful-

The stranger chuckled. "The picture, he says, was of your graduation; your gown was purple, and the cap made you look younger than you are now. He says the smell of blood never leaves. He also says that the nurse thought you were his father."

* * *

The ceiling was lower than expected, and he had to duck to avoid decapitating himself.

His most immediate sense was smell. Smell was everywhere; it clogged his pores, his nostrils, and soon he began to taste smell, too. Feces, rot, mildew, and mold. Vomit, sex, meat, and urine. Menstrual blood. There were rags with black stains nailed to the concrete walls to dry. The floor was littered with rat droppings and newspapers, debris and old bandages. That was the first sense.

His eyes were assaulted by a dimly lit, sepia-colored scene. Mattresses and rags and blankets covered the floor, and every one was occupied by several alien forms. Dark-skinned, human-like in their bone structure but in bone structure alone. They were much too gaunt, much too lifeless, to be human. He saw their eyes, red as blood, their hair stringy and stinking of the shit trapped in it.

The room was silent. There had to be at least a hundred crammed in this small basement space; bunks lined the walls, children huddled under sheets, their eyes glazed over and flies nipping at their tender flesh. Roy saw them breathing, knew they were alive, but didn't want to believe anyone could live in such a state. There was no oxygen. There was no food. There was nothing but waste, and anger, and putrid neglect.

Not even sunlight filtered in; the windows were blocked by black trash bags nailed to the walls. To prevent anyone from finding them. To prevent anyone from killing them, though that would have been a mercy. As it was, no one seemed to have noticed his entrance. The women were asleep; the men were asleep; the children were asleep.

Only when he took out his weapon did any of them stir.

"Xingese bastard!" one of the men cried, revealing a serrated blade from behind his back. Roy pulled the trigger before he registered seeing the flash of silver, soldier's instincts ever present. The knife spiraled out of the man's hand, landing on a mattress and sending feather down in the air. The dark-skinned man was not injured, just shocked into silence.

"Who leads you?" Roy demanded, trying his best to keep as emotionless as possible. By this point, the group was waking up; they smelled the fresh blood on him, and saw the red staining his clothes, face, body, hands. "Who negotiates for you?"

"Get out," the same man said darkly, rising a bit from his position on a soiled bundle of blankets. "Get out! You sons of bitches have taken everything; we have nothing left to give! Not even our women are fit for you devils!"

"I am not Xingese," Roy conceded gently, wondering what was behind the harsh words. He understood the implications, and the war crimes the Xingese had committed against the Ishballans during the second war. But remembering the gang of Xingese at Fadiyah's, he amended his thoughts. Perhaps the Xingese were taxing the Ishballans, or taking it upon themselves to take from immigrants who had no choice.

"How did you find us?" the man asked. Comprehension dawned in his unfortunately colored irises. "Randon. The bastard betrayed us all."

"What did he get out of hiding you?" Roy wondered, gaze sweeping the array of bodies once more. This was what hell must have been like. In all of the poverty and airlessness, he had to ask why they didn't just go back to live in the ruins of Ishbal. He chided himself soon after. Ishbal was a place where Amestrian soldiers still practiced genocide; where survivors were burned alive.

What better place to hide than right under the noses of the military? Even this dejected state, taking food from a blind man and living out days in the darkness, must have been better than a fear of torment. They should have killed themselves.

The man, who Roy took to be the leader despite his youthful appearance, looked down at the floor ashamedly. "He used to take our women to bed, three or four at a time. We tolerated this. No one else would take us. When they became too sickly to be desirable, we simply threatened him with death."

Sick bastard. Roy heard a dripping, and his blood started racing automatically; he found that it was only water leaking into a chamber pot. "This is no place for children. How long do you stay in here?"

The leader shrugged. "Sometimes for weeks at a time. We go outside in small groups. A while ago, before winter came, the children sold themselves, but that has stopped now." His eyes narrowed, something close to hatred eating up the vicious crimson. "But as for you. If you are not Xingese, and you are not military, why are you here?"

"Are you familiar with a man name Charlie?" Roy got straight to the point. At the name, an uneasy tremble went through every breathing body. Roy was well aware of that. So he knew that they were lying when they denied it.

"We know no one of that name," the leader said, going to sit back down on the soiled bed. He leaned back, sharing the space with two other people, who seemed to be unconscious. "He does not have a name like ours. Why would we know someone like that? We've forgotten the color of the sky."

Roy stepped forward, over beds and over bodies, feet crunching on broken glass and pottery and dried shit. He kept his gun poised, not, by any means, an idle threat. "I think you're lying."

"Who sent you?" The man licked his lips, eyes trained on the gun. "You may not wear a uniform and you may not be a pure blooded Xingese man, but that doesn't mean one didn't send you. How did you find us?"

"A woman named Fadiyah." At the subtle look of shock, Roy pressed on. "Do you know her?"

"My sister," the man said, expression darkening grimly. Mutters and whispers emanated from previously still bodies; they were still unmoving, but breath seemed to flow through them. "And a lost cause. What has happened to her?"

Roy frowned. He didn't want to incite the man's anger before he got answers. But there was nothing more that could be done other than speak the truth. "I saved her from a group of Xingese men who attempted to rape her. She's safe, and the men are dead. My only concern is what I want."

"Those bastards!" the man spat, raking his thin fingers through his oily hair. His eyes were wild with anger, and he spoke in a foreign tongue to other men in the room. They answered in turn, equally loud and pulling blades from pillow cases. From beneath mattresses. "We have had enough of them, of them and their plots to take our women, of them and their ideas about killing us all. Genocide. If genocide is what they want then genocide they shall get!"

"By all means, fight fire with fire. But answer me, first!" Roy demanded.

It was no use. The voices were becoming more impassioned. Men stumbled over their barely conscious wives and children, brandishing weapons and knives in the air, screaming in nearly forgotten tongues. "Fadiyah was brave enough to venture out into the world, to leave us behind. We wished her well," the man was saying. "But still she was gone after! What are we going to do?"

"Kill the bastards."

"How?"

"Fire and stone!"

A chorus of cheers echoed in the dank basement. When Roy felt his words had been largely forgotten, and the yelling became more impassioned, he took hold of the first person he saw; a small thing, probably a child, but warm and human and ultimately a price. "Answer me!"

The leader held a hand up to silence his brethren. His chest heaved from the righteous fury of a few moments ago, juxtaposed with the threat that faced him now. "You dare harm a girl?" he asked, breathing heavily.

"I've killed my fair share of them. In the end you realize they're all the same, innocent in aspiration and naive when it comes to the dark world they live in. A diamond is a diamond, pretty and hard, but if the world was full of diamonds they would be worthless. This child is worthless to me."

"No thing deserves to suffer, and not her."

"You say that because you know her; if this were a Xingese girl, would any of you give a damn?" His voice rose so that it blanketed the whole room. They were still. Silent. They had every right to kill the Xingese, Roy thought, but that didn't stop the words from frothing out of his mouth. "The world has been bathed in blood seven times over. One day, we're _all _going to sink down beneath the surface! Toward the fire! Toward the core!"

A woman began crying, moaning in pain, her ribs protruding from her chest. Blood stained the mattress where her mouth gasped for oxygen.

"Toward hell," Roy finished. The girl in his grip had not responded; had not even struggled. He turned her around so he could look at her, and realized, in an instant, that this was the closest he had been to an Ishballan child without killing it. She was really not so different from a Xingese girl, or a Cretian girl, or an Amestrian girl. They shared a heartbeat. Their blood was red. He closed his eyes so he didn't have to see her anymore. "Where is her mother?"

"Died of consumption," someone said softly, just as the same woman from before coughed up more blood.

"And the father?"

"Part of the red sun that took our homeland."

The philosopher's stone. He pushed the girl away, back onto the bed from whence she came, and perhaps where she would forever live. He noticed, with lingering horror, the blood that ran down her legs, that stained the bed in a ovular patch. Another man's guilty eyes shifted downward.

"Fadiyah sent me here because she said you know where to find Charlie," Roy addressed the leader. "I know you know who he is. So where is he? What is he?"

"A good man," an old woman whispered, voice rough and eyes leaking tears. Wrinkles made her face appear like an old brown tree.

"We followed him here. He found work in an Amestrian general who promised him life for us. Charlie was to help smuggle drugs - mostly opiates and amphetamines - across the border from Xing. We did not like him associating with them, but we knew it was for the best."

"For the best?"

"He had an ultimate plan. He promised the Xingese that he would take the golden child from Amestris, and give him to them to make their own red sun. To do this, Charlie said he needed to distract Amestris; keep them occupied. Poison the minds of the weak. So he began killing girls. Women and children. With the help of the vile Xingese mob."

"Why did he leave you?"

"We made him leave, after a time. There was too much blood on his hands. We heard stories of the gruesome nature of the deaths. We knew that we would always follow Charlie, hold his ideals and his standards at glory's height. But assist him? Forever, we could not. He understood. He exiled himself. To a place the Xingese would not be able to find him once his betrayal was imminent."

"Where?" Roy asked, body shaking.

"An Amestrian cathedral. A place of worship. A sanctuary." The leader closed his eyes. "You will find him there. I do not know what you seek, but in exchange for saving Fadiyah, I give this information to you freely. This cathedral holds a special place in the hearts of our people. In a bloodbath past, it served as our own sanctuary."

If it was really so simple...so simple as that? Did everyone hide in plain sight? When you didn't know where to look for something, you looked in the strangest of places. He had expected an abandoned factory or an obscure cavern or a town far away from here. But in the end, Edward had been hidden in a sanctuary. Deep in the darkness. But not even a mile away.

"I, too, seek the golden child," Roy muttered, almost to himself.

The man nodded, as if he had expected this. "I wish you luck in finding him. But be careful that you do not anger Charlie. His intentions are holy but his methods are most foul."

* * *

When he put the phone back on the hook, Jean swallowed back a dry lump in his throat. It felt like a painful clump of cotton. Must have been nerves. Understandable, considering what he had to do. "Major Avery," he addressed one of his guards. He hoped the sheen of sweat on his face didn't give him away. Avery faced him, eyes ever laughing. "I need to leave. I have something I need to do."

"Something you need to do?" the man asked mockingly. "Does it surpass the Fuhrer's orders to tail you?" He smiled at his partner, hand on his gun.

Jean didn't know what to say, what to do. He felt his life was slipping beyond his control, left in the hands of some stranger; like being under the influence, he careened and tried to keep a steady head. But it was getting so hard. "My sister's taken ill. I need to take a plane to my hometown immediately."

"Planes aren't running," Avery said. "And you're not leaving. No way in hell."

Nicotine. He rapped his palms against his legs. Thinking. Thoughts swimming chaotically; so tired. So, so, so tired of running and killing and (maybe not killing) but the dreams were leaving an impression. Higher than a kite. He remembered kites, and boyhood, and friends, and laughter, but that had dissipated into rock music and ecstasy and violence and meth and sex. And that, too.

Turned into something indescribably horrific; wasn't it all horrific, though? Childhood was an illusion. When you were a child you could imagine the world was one nice fucking place to live, where cartoons taught physics and believing in the tooth fairy was not as silly as believing in God.

Adolescence was a nightmare, too much emotion invested in sex; too little, in some cases.

_Why? Why would you do that to me?_

_Take your money and leave, bitch._

_Jean - Jean, please, I can't - _

_Alligator tears. _

And this. This moment, right now, with the pudgy faces of his underlings, their voices grating every last nerve that wasn't sparking in rage? Well.

He threw his fist at Avery, putting all of his fear and anger into the hit, watching with a detached sort of delight as the man's head was thrust to the side in a shower of blood and broken teeth. Someone called security. Time went back to normal. It wasn't blue anymore. He was sprinting down the hallway, throwing open doors, shoes skidding on linoleum tile.

It was dark outside.

His breath was fog on the air, and he ran, ran, ran.

Following the sounds of bells.


	34. Variegate

**Warnings: Villainous monologues, cliffhangers, torture, reference to dark material**

* * *

His feet were numb from cold. Wet slush slipped around in his shoes as he ran, ice like gravel between his toes. The discomfort never slowed him down for an instant, though the darkness did. Central was a black city lit only by the cigarettes of prostitutes and the headlights of military police units. He avoided both of these, and listened instead to the ethereal sound of heavy bells clanging in the night.

There were no ringers, no shadows of life in the steeple tower. No pattern to the noise. The wind must have been doing it, though he had become so impervious to temperature that the stirring of air might have not existed at all. It was all in his head.

The cathedral on Hill's Crest had been abandoned for decades. Occasionally, some well-meaning philanthropic rich folk would meet and discuss the old-world religion, but for the most part the temple stood like a quiet relic, allowed to die and decay in an unperturbed silence. Horrible things had happened there. Good things, too, but mostly bad.

It was where many had gone when they wanted sanctuary. When minorities had been targeted by the snow-pure Aryan populace. When criminals had wanted to escape the gallows for a breath of dismal church air. What better place for a monster to hide away his victims?

He stopped when he reached the thick iron gate in front of the property. Cold snow topped the heads of bars. The gate was open, the lock broken, the gravel path covered in thick white. The cathedral stood looming on a high hill, stained glass dark and ominous like dead irises. The turrets and balustrades were limbs and features of expression, adorning thick stone. It would have been the perfect place to hide when under siege, more a fortress than a place of worship. Too bad this was not a war in the classic sense.

He studied the building, expecting it to froth gore from the darkened stained glass windows. Snow fell soft like paper on the concrete. Still the bells rang, hollow against the dome of cold which surrounded him. The serenity of the scene was foreign in its intimacy, in its silence. In the way Jean felt he was standing on holy ground.

The killer had spoken to him on the phone as if he could read his thoughts, his fears, his desires. His voice had been calm, as if grains of sand were falling predictably to the bottom of an hourglass. The blood shed was just collateral. Serum between the cracks of bathroom tile. A boy's heart wrapped in tissue paper, discarded in the shadows. A woman sitting in a chair, body a statue for a bastard god.

Jean clenched the iron bars, snarling at the stone cathedral and whatever he would find inside. He was a cornered dog, growling and nipping at chains in despair. Edward would be the last victim - the very last victim. Because no matter who was responsible for it all, no matter the fucker's identity or motives, he would not be leaving this place with his brains intact. Jean would wrap his hands around his throat and squeeze until his eyes puckered out of his skull.

Then he would strap him down with his own wire barbs. Tongue bolted to the roof of the mouth. Twist and break every bone in the fucker's body. Do everything he ever did to his victims. Make him say he was sorry. Make him say he was sorry and then douse him in gasoline and light a match and _walk away_.

They would be avenged. Although Jean had never before fancied himself a killer (not a real one, his only weapon was a gun and everyone used those) he would not hesitate to deal the final blow after hours of agonizing torment. How would the world look on him then? A judgement-dealing angel? A sadistic bastard, no better than the one he'd destroyed? Maybe it was a good thing no one knew he was here.

Hot tears bled out from his eye sockets, and he raked his freezing hands through his hair, fighting the urge to break down sobbing because of the impossible stupidity and hopelessness of his situation. Who was he kidding? He wasn't a murderer, he wasn't even a proper soldier. His only losses were a woman who could have been a lover and a sixteen year old kid who had been plotting suicide anyway. He could forsake both of them and return home, living for his blood relations.

He had no weapons. He had no one to help him. Sure, Frank Archer might have been alive somewhere, basking in the afterglow of raping Hawkeye, and Mustang might have been hot on the tracks of the real killer. But those were a lot of maybes and he knew there was a good chance the three of them might be in on it together, leading the civilian police in circles trying to pinpoint exactly who had committed what crime. Was it a mistake to think they were all interconnected or was it just a small section of a bigger puzzle?

Fuck. He could run in, he could wave his arms, demand - what? Show me where the kid is or I'll beat you with my fists? Fists were useless against guns and knives and hacksaws, and he knew from the data that the killer had plenty of those. And, _fuck, _while he stood there being a pansy-ass worrying about a few scrapes or cuts or amputated limbs, the bastard could have been using those tools on Ed.

_"Come and get me, that's what I say." _

Like a butterfly. He'd fluttered right into the net. Pinned to cork board.

_"He's hurting the people around me to get to me."_

Hughes had been identified by his dental records.

_"Eventually there's going to be no one left to kill." _

Is that where he came in? Was Jean really the only person left who gave a damn whether Ed lived or died? He had offered the broken Angel of Death sanctuary from the demons that wanted to drag him into hellfire. Any decent person would have done it. Of course, there were no decent people left in the world. Just genocidal maniacs and stupid sheep that followed the shepherd to scythe.

Jean swallowed salt and bile, and let his first footstep fall on the blanket of snow. It crunched like old bones under matted leaves. He felt like he wanted to regurgitate but he just kept walking faster and faster until the snow had frozen his feet solid and it was sheer will and the inability to slow down and think that kept him going. There was no sign of life within the cathedral, and the windows stayed dark.

He listened for screams, but there were none, and that frightened him the most. Screams meant the body was still alive to make the sound.

* * *

The inside of the church was quiet. Stale darkness was permeated only by the glow of faint moonlight through colored glass. He couldn't make out the images in such gloom, but he knew they must have meant something to previous occupants. Long ago this place had been infested with joy, revelry, mirth; now there was only silence, and the ghosts of the dead.

He jumped as he felt something brush up against his face, and slammed a hand against it. A juxtaposition of wet and dry squelched between his knuckles, and he looked at the remains of what appeared to be a moth. Moths. He could hear them, fluttering, up in the rafters, among the candles not used for centuries. It was strange, it was otherworldly, mostly because he knew moths hibernated in such cold temperatures.

He wasn't in the sanctuary. He seemed to be standing in some kind of small alcove, probably where churchgoers congregated before the services began. Looking around, he could see no signs of life, nothing but the moths as they fluttered ashen wings.

"Ed?" he called out. He regretted giving in to his urge to speak. Because there wasn't a response, there was nothing, and that just made him feel all the more alone and helpless and disoriented. He had taken Ed for granted like every other part of his existence, and now felt as if the boy were being punished for his negligence.

This was just how he had felt the night they'd found Alphonse, bolted to the wall of an abandoned warehouse. He had had the same dreamlike feeling of walking through the beginnings of a nightmare. He had known something truly terrible was about to happen, but couldn't stop it, could only go through the motions of his responsibilities and wait for the ghouls to emerge.

He stepped forward, slowly, slapping moths out of the way. They landed on his head, his shoulders, ignorantly going about their business, impervious to the dark world they lived in. His eyes were adjusting slowly to the thick darkness, and he could make out shapes and objects. Doors with handles. One door in particular stood out, as it was open wide, but he could see nothing inside of it.

He squinted, trying to make out the contents. Instead he saw that the door was really more built for closets, and that stairs led down inconspicuously. Unfortunately the darkness was pressing so that even his flared pupils couldn't discern the bottom.

"Ed!" he called down the stairs. His voice echoed as if he had spoken to the bottom of a well. Just as he was about to open his mouth again, a frozen pain shot through his body, and he stood stiff as a day-old corpse. Somewhere in the shadows, he swore he saw a figure, shadowy, appearing and disappearing like smoke; it was shapeless and yet distinctly humanoid. Moving.

He laid a hand against the wall. Jean did not believe in ghosts. And yet he trembled and stood dumbfounded for another minute, ears tingling at every little noise. Just moth wings on the wood beams. Just the beat of his heart. Just the titter of a child's laughter, calm and playful, coaxing him down into the basement. The door slammed behind him, a draft of cool air hitting his face, the scent like cold dust and old cement.

_"Shhhhhh..." _

He took a step down, and the boards of the old steps creaked and groaned. He could have sworn he had heard a voice, somewhere, deep in the depths. As if the speaker were rooms away, voice muffled by walls or pillows or blood. Which led him to wonder - was it just - all in his head?

_"Listen." _

There it was again. Not quite a child's voice, too garbled and deep, like the static on a radio program or a tape played backwards.

_"The call." _

His shoelace caught. He stumbled down half the flight, cursing as his body was battered and bruised. His heart beat into a crescendo, and he whipped his head around wildly, trying to find the owner of the disembodied sounds before they somehow found him and devoured him alive.

"Ed?" he yelled frantically, pushing himself up as fast as he was able. Nothing. Nothing but black, black, black, no matter where he turned, no matter where he looked. He scrabbled around, trying to figure out what had tripped him. When he held the offending item close to his face, he discerned that it was a dead, rotting sunflower, and he had no idea how it had gotten there but he had a pretty good idea who had done it.

"Where are you, you bastard!" Jean practically screamed into the abyss. His own voice screeched around him, tinged with hopelessness. It was hard to listen to. Hard to listen to himself, on the verge of crying, shaken and broken and desperate to see another living human being. "Show yourself! Where's the fucking kid?"

Listen. That time, he knew it was in his head, but he followed the advice, his ears swallowed whole by white noise. He heard the trickle, the rush, of water.

Without thinking about it, he ran towards the sound like a weary traveler crossing the desert. Hands feeling along the walls. He was a blind man and he heard things crunching under his feet, maybe bones, maybe insects, maybe sunflowers. Puddles, shoes splashing, the water getting deep in them, mingling along with the melted snow. It smelled rank.

"Ed!" he tried again. The sound got louder and louder, like a faucet. Not quite a flood, but a growing seep. "Edward! Please, if you can hear me!"

A warm circle of light spilled out into the water on the concrete floor. It grew until he could vaguely identify a pattern of rooms in the dark, endless maze. The church was practically hiding a whole city, albeit one with a very low ceiling. He was going to lose himself. Maybe that was the killer's plan; lure him here until he died trying to escape the labyrinth.

He followed the light until it led him to a thick door that was ajar. The sunken room within was flooded with water the color of overflowed river banks. He saw dirt and debris in the clouds, ashes and fragments of what looked like scorched bone. The light flickered and danced, casting shadows on the gloom.

He edged his way inside, water soaking through his pant legs and leaving him shivering. Jean couldn't see where the liquid was coming from; it smelled like mildew and waste, so he assumed there was a broken pipe somewhere. Candles were lit on a rolling table - the kind he might find at a hospital, though this trolley was rusted out and chipping. The wax dripped down until it fell and cooled in the grimy water.

He looked around. Cold. Heart a dull, dead beat in his chest. His fingers were clenched into hard fists, as if that could stop any possible attackers from murdering him on the spot. If they had a knife, he might be able to grab the blade and take it from them; anything bigger, anything more complex, well.

He froze. In the shadows, at the other end of the candlelit room, a lumpy shape sat in a corner, covered in a dirty white sheet. Vaguely human - like a figure, huddled for warmth. His breath caught in his throat in one violent, heart-stopping shudder.

"Ed!" He ran forward, feet slopping around in the muck. Cigarette ends and empty needles floated on top, brushing his ankles. He dropped to his knees in front of the figure, reaching forward to touch, to feel, to hold. The body didn't move, and for a moment he feared the worst, hesitating, not wanting to embrace a cold corpse; not wanting to pull back the damp sheet and reveal a limp, mutilated body; not wanting to see golden eyes overwhelmed by lifeless pupil.

He smelled death in the air. Blood, and decay, and mold, and fire. Ashes gathered around him to look like stone floating on a stream. Human remains, perhaps, black and crusty from accelerated decomposition. Those poor souls would need to wait.

He put fingers to his lips, tears leaking from his eyes. Closed them. From the moment he had lost Ed, he had told himself that he could only hope to find a body, if anything. There was no such thing as luck. But now, he couldn't stomach the thought that what had been alive was now dead.

Like Riza. She had been so warm and alive and now she was occupying a morgue, waiting to be buried beneath the earth. Would Ed join her, and his brother, and Maes, and his mother, sink down into the soil and become one forgotten corpse in a graveyard of thousands?

He peeled the sheet back, slowly, swallowing hard when he saw golden swathes of wet hair dripping in the candlelight. His breath hitched in his throat, knowing Ed's face from the moment he saw it. Black cloth was wrapped around his head, covering his eyes, and a strip of tape covered his mouth, but Jean knew the vaguely soft lines of his jaw and cheekbones.

He didn't yet bother to remove the gag or blindfold. The dead could see and tell no evil.

He pressed the back of his hand to Ed's damp and chilly forehead, hoping to feel any thrum of life. The flesh was lukewarm and dripping wet. Weak hope flared within him as Jean detected a caress of exhalation across his wrist. Edward was alive. Barely there, hanging on by a thread, but alive.

"Ed?" Jean said, a thousand words dying in his throat. Edward was alive and close to him and the darkness, the nightmare, didn't seem so real. They were lost and alone and Jean was still afraid, for the both of them, but if they could die together instead of separated, maybe heaven would open up like a floodgate.

Ed wasn't responding, to the motions or to the sound of the human voice. Jean could only imagine what kind of thoughts stirred the near-comatose mental state.

He frowned, reaching around to work at the knot on the blindfold. He untangled the boy's hair from the cloth, pulling it away to reveal closed eyes and dark, stress-induced circles. Jean checked his eyes, but they were rolled back, flickering, the pupils expanded; Ed was deep in the realm of unconsciousness. His pulse was a drudging current. Jean deduced that he was probably drugged, because of the symptoms and because Ed wasn't bound to anything. The killer did not fear Ed would try and leave.

Which led to another set of questions. Where was the infamous Charleston murderer? He must have been lying in wait somewhere, perhaps aware that Jean was capable of finding Ed on his own before he killed them both. Like a false happy ending. No. Jean couldn't think about that. He needed to focus on Ed - prolonging his life, hearing him speak, letting him breathe the cold winter air.

He stopped as his cautious, probing examination told a story. Anger swelled like hot air in a balloon. Scars crisscrossed the boy's arms like scarlet ribbon, deep and inflamed and probably infected. Ugly bruises, needle marks. Jean saw Ed's hand was broken and mutilated, as if someone had jammed a knife straight through it before twisting. Several fingernails had been ripped away, leaving bloody, purple nubs.

Jean took the blond's head in his hands gently, turning it towards the light. Ed made a small noise of pain, of protest, but didn't move, eyes screwing more tightly shut. Good. That was good. After carefully peeling the tape away, Jean was careful as he put his medic's knowledge to good use, slipping a finger between Ed's lips to feel around his mouth. He frowned, cringing, as his finger swept the bloody open holes of stolen teeth.

Stranger marks made him pause in contemplation. A collar of black fingerprint-shaped bruises adorned the blond's throat, a sign that murder had already been attempted but not seen through to its conclusion. He thought about that. Either the killer had not truly intended to suffocate him, or he had presumed unconsciousness meant death. That was a risky thing to bet on.

"Talk to me, Ed," Jean whispered gently, folding his arms around the blond as if any moment he might sink into the grimy water and disappear. Ed wasn't shivering, though he should have been in such cold and damp conditions. His body must have been shutting down from hypothermia. The drugs were probably making things worse. "Where is the Charleston?"

No response. Jean let out a sound of strangled despair, desperately clinging to the signs of life he'd seen earlier. He wrapped the sheet more tightly around the teen's small body, and then hoisted him up, letting excess water drip off the lump of fabric. He carried him to the open doorway, struggling through the high water. It was difficult to remember which way he had come from, and even harder in the darkness.

He swallowed as he looked into its depths, afraid of getting lost, afraid of wasting away in the cold damp, and reluctantly set Ed down so that he was propped against a moldy cement wall. Ed's body was limp, but the movement seemed to have done him some good. Jean could feel him trembling from the cold.

He made sure Ed would stay safe where he was, and looked around the room for another possible way out. There was a heavy iron door that appeared to belong to a furnace, so he didn't examine it further. He was certain he would find nothing of any use; old blood and grotesque abominations, perhaps, but his mind was concentrated on sustaining his and Ed's lives more.

He threw an old chair out of the way, followed by the trolley. The water on the floor reminded him that he had yet to locate the source, and decided that perhaps if he followed the piping, he would eventually come to an exit. He could hear it running but couldn't tell from where. Then he noticed the stain.

One part of the wall was darker than the rest. Jean touched it, and realized that instead of concrete, it was drywall with the appearance of stone. An alchemic invention, perhaps to help whoever hid here make a quick getaway if need be. A false wall.

He kicked it hard, grinning as he heard the damp material groan. Water leaked through cracks towards the bottom of the facade. That just made him kick harder, hoping for the best; hoping that the killer had overlooked this, had not known that the labyrinth held more secrets than could be seen with a glance. After more assault, the wall crumbled to the floor, revealing a dimly lit stone staircase. Water rushed over the remnants of the wall, gushing down the steps.

He grabbed Ed and went for it, carefully hoisting the teen in his arms. Ed's head just lolled against his shoulder, his condition faring no better. Jean started the ascent, eyes roaming the curvature of the staircase as they went up. It was dark but a hint of white light prodded him onward. White light meant the moon was shining, which subsequently meant a window.

They could get out of here.

* * *

The sight that met Jean's eyes was both beautiful and surreal. Somehow, the dim passage opened up to the clergy's quarters, and from there he walked a short distance to a stout wooden door that led directly to the sanctuary. Drips of cold water hit warped, dusted floorboards, echoing in a silence thicker than sheep's wool.

The colored glass of the windows glowed with faint moonlight. Scenes that Jean couldn't properly interpret manifested themselves in the stained art. A woman with a tender smile and round abdomen. A phoenix with plumes of flame. There was a man carrying stone tablets with strange writing. Still another with a circlet of light around his head, geometric patterns accenting his form.

The rest of the church was cast in cold, blue darkness.

Jean set Ed down on an old pew bench, peeling off the soaking wet sheet, frowning as he realized that Ed had layers of clothing underneath that. When Jean moved to take away those soggy remains, he realized that it wasn't what Ed had been wearing in the hospital.

He pressed his hand to his lips. These were Hawkeye's clothes.

He remembered seeing her in them as he rushed about the hospital, drinking and smoking as if his life depended on it. Could remember her soft movements, her tidy fingernails tapping the styrofoam cups. He could imagine her in these clothes, could imagine the story behind the dried blood stains. Could hear the hush of light snow on the windowpanes. Felt his heart thump an extra beat when Edward's eyes flickered to life like a damp match.

"Ed?" he whispered, smoothing back the teen's damp hair.

Ed looked like a drowned angel, stolen away from heaven and cast in the depths of the ocean. Fragile confusion and fear and a reluctance to feel anything else were potent emotions that Jean could detect even if he wasn't very attuned to other people's senses. In Ed, feelings screamed like tormented souls.

Jean choked a little, pulling the blond close, when Ed broke down crying; he mumbled sweet nothings, empty promises, just as his parents had done when marrow treatment got too close. Too tender. "It's okay, kid. It's all gonna be okay now. I've got you."

Ed made himself smaller than usual, abused body curling so near Jean's heat it was as if the boy were afraid of the surrounding air. Perhaps he was. Perhaps he had been tormented to a point of no return, constantly seeking threats and trying, in vain, to avoid them.

"I thought Mustang killed you," Ed sobbed quietly, words stuttered and broken from the intensity of his cries. "I thought that you'd burned." His fingers were like claws in Jean's shirt, clutching and unable to let go. Jean calmed his irrational fear of separative forces, letting his hands find their way to Ed's back, slowly easing away the tension of strained flesh.

"I'm not dead," he responded, gently. "And neither are you. You're safe now. Mustang's long gone and the fucker that had you all this time is gonna be eating his own dick when I'm done with him." He meant that. Even in a shell-shocked state, what had happened to Ed made anger blister beneath his skin.

In the relatively warmer atmosphere of the church, his senses were not as paralyzed. Beneath the warm honey-nut scent that followed Ed around, there was the foul stench of rape. Semen, blood, sweat, and fear, a combination of sweet and sour that made snakes coil for the kill in Jean's stomach. He said nothing about his suspicions, instead holding true to his intentions of letting Ed believe it was just a long nightmare.

"I was cold," Ed said into Jean's shoulder. His voice was so soft, like the sweep of wind against sunflowers. "So cold, all the time. And. Things _happened _and I was alone and Archer - I _died, _and he was, Alphonse was - please, just don't go away. _Please._" His last words were desperate, pitching, and he pressed his damp skeletal frame closer to Jean as if by force he could meld their bodies into one. Like Al, he would hide his soul in another vessel, sheltered from the horrible world he had been born into.

"Never going away," Jean said. He clutched either side of the blond's head, blue sky meeting auric sun. "If I have to, I'll bleed. And I'm not a fan of blood, so you better bet your ass I'm serious."

The last time he had left Ed's side, it was because his heart had ached for revenge; he had followed Mustang like a lamb to slaughter, fingers itching to kill the man for daring to touch what should never have been touched. He would not make that mistake again. At first he had burned to destroy the Charleston killer, but now, in this moment, avenging Ed was not as important as Ed was.

Ed was real and warm and breathing, tangled up in his arms as if there were nowhere else he would rather be. He was vulnerable, a shadow of the strong-willed child Jean had met years previously, all of the lechers in existence having sucked him dry because he was just too pure and pretty to set free. At first he had clawed at the bars of his prison, went for the throat of those who would call him victim, but in the end like all human beings he withdrew into himself and wept for the innocence lost.

"Ed," Jean said against the crown of golden hair, "I have something to tell you. We ain't outta the woods yet. But we're getting there. And tomorrow morning, baby, when the sun comes creeping over the hill, we're gonna sit our asses down with Breda and Falman and we're gonna eat our weight in pancakes."

Ed trembled as he smiled, eyes on the stained glass window above Jean's head. The imagery was blurry and unfocused, a kaleidoscope of dementia. "I think I'm okay with that," he said. And Jean knew that the teen, no matter his thoughts on death or the turbulence to come, was okay with living, was okay with putting the past behind him, so long as he could pretend to be a normal, thoughtless adolescent.

Just like everyone else.

He wanted to indulge that fantasy. "You can live with me now, kid," he said further, ignoring the hot tears tracking down his neck and the relentless thought that neither of them would see tomorrow. Moths fluttered in the rafters, creatures of death. "We can just be lazy drudges, we can just run away from here, go to Xing or something, baby. You wanna see Xing, don't you?"

Ed nodded.

"'Cause this country's going to hell in a hand basket, Ed. We don't wanna be here when it does. We wanna be out there, in the east, hitchhiking out in the fucking rice fields. Watching Amestris burn herself down." He rocked a little, listening as Ed's cries subsided into quiet, as the teen just took the time to hear and envision the things he knew would never come to pass, would never come to fruition. "I would burn myself down for you, Ed-"

_Burn  
Me  
down_

He felt the gunshot before he heard it vibrate the stale darkness. White hot pain tore through his hand. He cursed loudly, releasing Ed and using his other hand to staunch an immediate blood flow. Scarlet seared his flesh, and he looked at his hand, and the sticky red bullet that had penetrated sinew and muscle and bone. But where-

Ed's face was wrought with terror, his breathing shallow. He had brought his knees up to his chest in a shaky, submissive pose, hair falling across desperately blinking eyes. He had known something like this was coming, had known all along that there was no chance in hell they'd ever get out of here. He'd known.

"I didn't mean to break it, I didn't mean to break it," Ed mumbled quietly, flinching lie a dog caught pissing indoors. Gold eyes flashed toward the stained glass windows and back again.

"You should watch yourself."

Jean snapped his head toward the voice, moaning in pain and wrapping his hand in the sheet Ed had hid under. A man stood at the other end of the church, dark, scraggly hair hidden beneath a baseball cap. His eyes were dark like stones and his clothes were scraps. Most striking was the grotesque scar tissue that covered a good portion of his face, discolored and bloody and raw.

The man's pistol was lowered. When he spoke his voice was calm and concise, unperturbed by their presence as if they were nuisances that needed to be swiftly dealt with. "You're always so preoccupied with everyone else and never really succeed at protecting them anyway. It's a wonder you survived your combative days."

Jean seethed, trembling and holding his busted hand tight against his chest. His breath came out in a vicious snarl. "You the fucker that's been killing all them innocent kids? You the one that took him?" He used his uninjured arm to shield Ed's head from any other bullets. A hand was not, by any means, a good deflector, but it was better than nothing.

The man smiled. His teeth were white, but chipped. "You don't recognize my voice? I rather enjoyed the ordeal. He's marvelous." He started walking towards them, but there was nowhere to hide. Jean sat very still, hand throbbing, and ignored the stench of fresh blood in the air. When the killer stopped directly beside them, he stiffened up, putting on his best threatening glare.

This was the man who had killed them. Murdered his friends in cold blood.

He cowered despite himself. "Are you going to kill us?"

"Him," the man said carelessly, staring at Ed."Haven't really made a decision as far as you're concerned. Depends on how you behave." He removed one of his worn hands from his jacket pocket, and threaded his fingers through Ed's hair. The killer must have done it before, touched him like that, intimate and possessive. Hot spikes of anger drove through Jean's heart.

"I'm not going to sit by," Havoc growled angrily, "and watch you murder him."

"You act as if I'm letting you make the decision," the stranger said, and then before Jean realized what was happening, seized Ed by his hair and dragged him down off the pew onto hard stone floor. Ed gasped in pain, clawing at the man's hands, trying to fight, trying to kick and bite and whatever else possible with only a malnourished body for a weapon.

Jean scrabbled to gore the man's legs, but was dealt with a swift kick to the face. He cried out as he landed on his ruined hand, the bullet falling out with a slick clink. The killer proceeded to shove Ed to the floor, cracking him hard in the ribs with a steel-toed boot. Jean heard something snap, and then Ed was sobbing on the ground, trying helplessly to shield his head as more blows rained down on him.

Blood ran into Jean's eyes as he made another swipe at the killer, but this time he missed, and this time the killer took no mercy, firing another bullet that narrowly missed his calf. It grazed it like a thousand wasp stings, and blood dripped down onto the stone.

"Leave him alone!" Jean bellowed out. He spit blood out on the ground, stumbling on injured hands and knees towards the epicenter of assault. Somewhere along the line his body gave out on him, and he could only look on, struck, as Ed was beaten without mercy.

Edward was crawling along, trying to get away, blood streaking through his hair, strings of bile and vomit hanging from his lips. The killer grabbed his hair again, flipping him like an animal onto his back. The man held his head to the floor by his hair, getting close to his face. Straddling him as if he was familiar with the position of holding him down.

"Get the _fuck _off of him!" Jean yelled, holding his hand against his chest as it soaked the cotton through. His breathing had lapsed into short, breathy pants. Jerky movements kept him conscious.

The killer acted in a split second, his gun suddenly going from the relatively safe spot at his waist to being against the kid's head. "You've got a lot of nerve, acting the hero," the man said, addressing Jean with a knowing smirk. Ed looked at the blond man from beneath his disheveled hair, as if afraid to be caught making eye contact. "You're not a hero. You're not even the decent man you pretend to be."

"The hell are you talking about? The hell are you talking about, you _fucking psychopath!_" Jean pulled himself up to lean against the pulpit railing, blood pooling around him from his bleeding thigh and bleeding head and bleeding hand. Moonlight from the clerestory reflected on sticky wounds.

The killer just grinned, digging the gun deeper. Edward's tears dripped into his teeth. "Tell him about your baby." At Jean's disturbed silence, the murderer chuckled, then shook his head toward the heavens and back. "Tell him about the girl or I turn his brain into porridge." The trigger clicked. Ed sobbed, frightened eyes locking on Jean as if he had no other means of grounding himself.

Jean felt his heart break into a thousand fragments from that look. The pieces embedded themselves in other vital organs, puncturing them so that he bled dry. He could feel his serum rushing from his cheeks and into the ground. "I...I can't, I..." Salt. "I was so stupid back then. I didn't know what I was doing, I..."

"One."

"There are things you have to understand, Ed-"

"Two."

"It's not black and white-"

"Nine."

"I was accused of something, something I did a long time ago."

He had a captive audience, and Jean was certain that Ed would listen to and ponder every word spoken. He wasn't certain of what the kid would think. The blond was a victim of similar circumstances - different perspective, same crime, and Jean knew he would empathize with a different party. What Ed thought of him was nothing compared to Ed's life. So he spilled his guts open.

The killer nodded him on, smile a permanent scar on his scarred face.

"I was into that whole drug scene," Jean began, watching Ed's reactions, which for the most part were emotionless and more concerned with the gun at his head. He bit his lip as a wave of hot pain shot through his hand and up his arm. Then he continued. "We had these parties. Where we did heroin all night long, got wasted. Somewhere along the line I met this girl. And I did something I'm not too proud of."

Ed's eyes went wide as a river mouth. Implications whispered in the air, and Jean knew that without even saying anything incriminating, he had already damned himself as a bastard in Ed's eyes. The kid had been used. No, not even used. He had been violated, contaminated, destroyed from the inside out.

"There was a lot of passing-the-needle that night. A lot of making out, harmless stuff. I was going out with this girl, Karma, at the time. And then I got her alone." He stopped talking, not of his own volition, but because of the unconscious stream of memory running through his brain. Cigarette smoke and loud music and the small guest bedroom out of the way. The green blanket and the way she'd moaned and writhed until, midway- "Things happened."

How could he rationalize this? How could he rationalize what he had done? He couldn't. He had tried. Tried blaming the drugs, the victim, his youth. He couldn't make excuses like that, because Ed had been hurt by the same crime - viciously, repeatedly, as if he was worthless unless used for gratification.

Jean was no different.

No. No, he _was_ different. Roy had assaulted Ed out of lust, out of a desire to break him, to abuse him and debase him. Jean had - well? What? Why had he done what he'd done? Because he'd wanted her and because things were going well and once it started the music had gotten to his head and turned coherent thought into a single pulse of blood. The word "stop" meant nothing to a twenty-something with his cock ready to go.

"I see the tormented expression on your face," the stranger said, smirking. He ran his free hand through Ed's matted hair, lovingly, slowly, and Ed could only shiver and let him do it. Jean didn't watch this, didn't see this, because his eyes were on the windows. Not Edward's face. "You don't want to see yourself as the bad guy. No one does. But you can walk away from this the good guy."

Jean collapsed to his knees again. "And how's that?" he asked, staring at the blood-red rug that ran between the church pews in the aisle. He remembered perfume and her rivulets of dark hair and her chocolate complexion, and those memories transformed into infantile wailing in a hospital ward with a tiny child in his arms, and those evaporated into a court sentencing. Assault in the third degree: not guilty.

The killer chuckled, pausing in his complacent movements so that his hand rested on the blond's throat. "You could let me kill the boy. Let me release him so that God might have mercy on his soul. And you can tell the world that you tried - honestly tried - to save his life."

Why in the hell would he ever do that? There was nothing to live for, after all he had lost and caused himself to lose. Ed was his purpose now, his way of amending the past. If Karma had a face. Oh, if Karma had a face. My God, that had been it all along, hadn't it? His need to see Ed through the darkness, his desire to crush Mustang like a cockroach. He had seen a facet of himself and he hadn't liked it.

"Think of the honor that would be bestowed on you, politics aside. The military would reward you for neutralizing the threat of Fullmetal's mind and all the secrets within. You would be given the power to turn the world on its head, and the people would adore you for attempting to rescue their precious hero. You could command them to take back their country."

"And what would happen to you, once I told everyone who it was that killed the people's alchemist?"

"You don't understand," the man said, eyes closing in a kind of smug solemnity. His arms tightened around Ed in a mockery of embrace, making the blond's body stiffen accordingly. His eyes closed again, leaking diamonds that seemed luminescent in the sanctuary light. "I do not plan on being caught. In fact, you might even say I don't properly exist."

Ed broke out into a sob, hair sticking to his forehead from sweat and tears. He gave Jean a god-awful look, stricken and terrified and confused, and then curled up submissively in the killer's arms, in a state of delirium so thick he couldn't even breathe properly. His clothes were too thin for his wet body; he wasn't holding in any heat.

Jean stared at him in his pathetic state, swallowing dry cotton. The kid was obviously traumatized or he would have been fighting. It was too much to ask now. Maybe he did love Ed. If he didn't, then this wouldn't be so painful. "So if you were just planning on killing him anyway - you with all of this goddamn omnipotence about everything - why do it now? Why not earlier?"

"I'm expecting someone," was the cryptic response.

"That's not an answer," Jean muttered angrily, raking his good fingers through his hair. Congealing blood dried on his hand, and crusting red covered his shirt. "What's in this for you? What could you possibly want to kill Ed for? Or the girls. Or Alphonse Elric. Or Maes Hughes. Why would you do it? That's all I wanna know."

The man laughed to himself, as if the list of victims was remarkably funny. He got off Ed, rising to a standing position but keeping his gun trained near his head. "I don't get any pleasure out of the kill if that's what you mean," he said. "I tend to think of it as arranging a carcass for consumption."

Riza Hawkeye had certainly looked like a carcass, her best features carved away to be devoured, her very nature degraded. That made Jean angry. He didn't understand how some people could do that, talk about their own species (a degrading term in itself) as if they were nothing but meat. Maybe they were nothing but meat, nothing but chemicals, but chemicals dictated they love, not cut one another to ribbons.

"These are human _beings _you've been slaughtering, you heartless piece of shit."

"Yes, human beings," the killer said pleasantly, "but despite all the fairy tales of your youth, Jean Havoc, not every human is worth the same as another. Every person has a value and I can tell you from the bottom of my _heart _that not one of the individuals I pursued had the least bit of worth."

"So an eleven year old child from the suburbs is worthless?" Jean snapped, thinking of Margaret Peters and the way her mother hadn't been able to finish the interview with the police because she'd fainted from sheer horror and grief. And the funeral bills were mounting and my _God, _haven't you found the rest of her? It was just we were hoping for an open casket. To say goodbye.

The man pursed his lips and Jean knew he'd struck a nerve. Children were worthless indeed. "Yes. From an intellectual standpoint. Physical. She was destined for a future of self-indulgence, a culture of greed that your nation is so proud of. Poor little rich girl. Maggie, correct?"

Jean fought to keep his head. Son of a bitch, calling the kid by a sentimental name like that. As if he knew her, as if he'd coddled the poor girl as he sawed the legs off her screaming body. "Correct," he gritted out. "What about Alphonse Elric? He was valuable. He was smart, he was a good kid."

"But he loved Edward," the man said coldly. "And that is a sin unforgivable."

Jean slammed both fists on the ground, barely flinching even as pain seared his arm. "Goddamn it, what do you have against Ed?"

"Everything. All that he is. All that he stands for. From the moment he entered this world he has been a magnet for demonic forces. They manifested themselves in his blood, made him a beacon for pathetic human beings to fawn over helplessly. A poison in a rose. Once they caught his scent they were doomed."

The killer pulled a syringe of something from inside his jacket, gun dropped on the ground. Jean thought that it was blood, but the consistency was thinner and he could see moonlight streaming through the translucent liquid.

The reaction was immediate. One moment, Edward was limp on the floor in a catatonic state of learned helplessness. Then Jean heard him give a quick intake of air, followed by the blond scrambling as far away from the killer as possible. He crawled backwards until the killer caught up with him, grabbing him by the hair with the same hand holding the needle.

"Come now," the killer said calmly, pistol back in his other hand. Ed thrashed away from the syringe, drops of poison beading in his hair like raindrops. "It's time for you to be a good child and take your medicine..."

"What the hell is that crap?" Jean demanded, on his knees.

"Well, you really need to observe it to see how it works," the murderer said with a sick grin. "So observe." Ed squirmed and sobbed as the needle went in. Then he was very quiet, body trembling like a kitten's in the rain.

Jean heard the most ear-splitting scream his eardrums had ever had the misfortune to encounter. Ed writhed on the floor, clearly in the worst pain imaginable. His eyes were squeezed shut and he was digging his remaining nails into his arms, never stopping for air, breaking off into unidentifiable screams of misery.

"_Havoc_!" Ed sobbed, voice tight and high as if he were literally burning. Eyes like gold coins. "_Help me_!"

_Do you have any idea  
What it's like  
To burn alive?_

_Ever touched a hot pan?  
It hurts  
It makes you cry  
When you burn  
There's no air for that_

_You have to escape your body_

_Cancer is like that; but slower  
_

Jean collected himself and rushed to the teen, holding his jerking, pain-crazed body close. He could feel Ed's muscles clench and ripple under his skin, could feel hot tears soaking his bloodied shirt. Ed gritted his teeth and wailed and Havoc knew his teeth were dangerously close to his tongue. He had no doubt, from the way the blond's screams were escalating into something only vaguely human, Ed would try and bleed himself out.

"Ed!" he yelled over the screams, trying in a panic to hold down his arms, "Ed, bite down on my shoulder."

Edward obeyed, teeth firm on muscle and bone. Havoc started bleeding instantly, skin and shirt becoming shredded victims, but somehow the pain faded into throbs of discomfort when he realized it was nothing compared to what Ed was going through. At least he could see his wound - Ed thrashed about as if swarms of fire ants had invaded his bloodstream.

"What did you do?" Jean demanded of the killer, watching as the needle in scarred fingers dripped scarlet onto the stone floor.

"It's a chemical that activates pain receptors," the killer said in a bored tone. "Starts off as an unpleasant tingle and works its way up to the intensity of incineration. In Ishbal the laboratories concocted a set of drugs called the variegates. Chemicals which caused instant death. A life-saving serum which prolongs life even if the victim is close to the edge. Hallucinogens. And the red serum, which takes itself out on the nervous system."

Ed pulled his mouth away from Jean's shoulder, breathy sobs an interlude in the torment. Their eyes met, Ed's dripping, before the blond's body convulsed and another ragged scream tore from his lips. Jean didn't know how to respond to that, other than to keep holding on and hope that the drug would wear off. It would wear off, right?

And Ed - Ed had had automail. He was no stranger to pain, and yet this drug, this bile, had turned him into a tormented machine. Ishbal must have been a literal hell on earth, dark figures offering their rainbow assortment of drugs if soldiers did not cooperate. Edward had experienced it before.

Not soon enough, Ed's screams eventually died down into exhausted whimpering. His eyes were closed and saliva and blood ran down Hawkeye's old shirt. Dark bruises developed beneath his abused skin, the tense form of his muscles rupturing blood vessels. Jean could feel his limp muscles twitching and shaking, the boy's system still under the impression of danger.

"Ed?" Jean whispered to him, careful as he laid him on his back. Ed made a retching sound in response, and Jean was quick to turn him on his side as bright red vomit and bile escaped him. Jean looked into his unfocused eyes. They were bloodshot and red, the pupils constricted. Unhealthy, cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

"I have three more syringes of that stuff," the killer said from the pulpit shadows, holding the empty syringe to the light where it sparkled like a knife. "It's amazing what science has accomplished. Human beings have evolved to the ranks of beasts."

Jean clenched his teeth. How he could possibly think that evil _shit _was wonderful was beyond him. "You implying that you're going to give him the other three? You know goddamn well he'll die if-"

"Collateral damage, really. I do enjoy a show. A little bit of liquid makes him scream more than I could get him to in all the days I had him." He smiled, eyes like beetles in the eye sockets of a corpse. Gnarled fingertips clutched an identical syringe, full of serum. "If only someone in this room were willing to compromise, take it for him..."

Jean stared at the glinting syringe being offered him. Then he took it in his fingers, looking at the brilliant color, agonizing over the thought of what he knew he was going to do. Beside him, Edward was shivering on his side, lost again in a dreamworld with a semblance of humanity.

Maybe if he did it slow it wouldn't hurt so bad. He thought of it as a shot from a pediatrician, the bright needle poking through the flesh of his arm. He pressed down on the syringe, swallowing as he saw (but didn't feel) the crimson serum pervade his blood.

He threw the syringe on the ground, and then crawled somewhere he knew he could control himself, somewhere out of the way. He'd never been tortured, no, and certainly not willingly, but he had a pretty good window of pain he could actually tolerate.

It came on immediately - the tingles. Like his whole body was asleep. Pins and needles. It wasn't quite painful, just uncomfortable. He looked to Ed, who was staring at him silently, and the killer, who was standing as if waiting for a fireworks display to start up. Childlike wonder even in the presence of bloodshed.

Heat flared up, spreading from his heart to his fingers and beyond. His whole body went taut as he tried to crawl along, away from something he couldn't escape. The killer's face was nothing but a shit-eating smirk.

"Fuck off," Jean said, gritting his teeth and releasing himself to the void.

The pain came as a white-hot flash, sudden and intense and horrifying. His skin was wrapped in coal-paper, oxygen taken by the heat. His very bones were _charcoal, _eaten by flame, the marrow torn apart by hellish winds.

He didn't know if he was screaming. He didn't. Because he was deaf and his body was breaking and - oh _god - _blistering magma knives were stabbing every inch of flesh, his fat and muscle boiling away in a putrid fog of carcass rot. He was flailing and biting and trying to escape his body, escape the horrible pain he was being subjected to.

The killer made a move toward Ed - "You can do better than that" - and Jean didn't think though his screams, just emptied the rest of the syringe in his wrist, hoping it would spread like a wildfire, be over and done with; he was knocked into oblivion, coughing up irritated throat-blood, raking his nails along his arms and screaming, "No, no! Give it to me!"

The needle went to Ed and Ed jerked away, kicking and screaming, but it was futile, and soon they were both enthralled by the serum. They had been seized by the crimson darkness that had driven so many others to suicide.

"I lived there. In that desert country," the murderer said quietly. "I traveled there in my youth, to find myself. I was a humanitarian at heart and the poor urban sprawl spoke to me. I met a woman, a pure blood Ishballan, and we had three children together."

Ed was on his knees, body crouched over them in a mockery of a praying position. He bit down on his crusted-over, ruined hand, the bones rattling against his shrieks.

"Life was good. Poor." The murderer seemed to be in a different place. "We spent years trying to build up the image of Ishbal - trying to revive the heart of the people. And we almost succeeded. But then the damn Xingese wanted a slice of the pie of imperialism, and they made a deal with the brass of the Amestrian plutocracy."

A look of disgust swept the killer's features, and he walked haphazardly over Havoc, who was sprawled in an epileptic fit of absolute agony. When he came to Ed, he just looked on him, and Ed met his eyes, and then they just looked at each other; Ed was pleading, desperate, but his words were silent, and then he fell back in a wave of excruciating pain.

"Xing and Amestris promised our leaders gold, promised them educational improvements. Promised them that the occupation was a safety hazard; earthquakes were beginning to become commonplace. What they didn't mention was that the earthquakes were aftershocks of transmutations. Experimental, deadly transmutations. Civilians began to disappear.

"It got like before. A repeat of the first war. Soldiers getting into scuffles with commoners. Somewhere along the line a child was shot during a botched abduction and from there hell broke loose. The cities were obliterated; the people were rounded up. The angel of death and the demon that protected him with a pillar of flame were tormenting the civilians, pushing them further into the military's nets."

The killer's eyes narrowed into intimidating slits, his body shaking with an angry fervor he was doing well at keeping concealed.

"My daughters were raped and mutilated and finally blown to pieces by an artillery shell. My only son was dragged on the back of a tank until his body crumbled and broke. My wife and I were rounded up with the others in an elementary school in Sur'Ak. None of them knew what alchemy was; it isn't taught, it's not spoken about, people don't know what it _is._"

He pulled another cigarette out, lighting it when it was already in his mouth. He dropped the match down on Ed's writhing form, amused, darkly amused, as it fizzled out and failed to draw the boy's attention. It must have burned him; pity.

"We didn't see it coming. I alone could smell it. We heard whispers that the Angel had arrived to send us to Ishballa, and then red light consumed us, and the pain was unimaginable; for a moment, we were all connected. Tied to each other and tied to the angel, as if all the voices in the world were joined together before fading into silence. And then it was over."

Jean heard those words as the dosage faded into weak pulses of tingles and shocks. He lay on his back, staring at the high cathedral ceiling, panting and contemplating what the hell had just happened to him. He couldn't think. He just coughed, tasting metal on his lips. He had chewed straight through them.

"I was lucky - skipped over," the murderer said, this time clearly talking to Jean but somehow as if from another room, another universe. "My body was irreparably scarred. Torn. I was carted off in a truck. Dumped on the side of the road."

Ed was barely conscious when his dose of poison wore off. Jean turned his head to look at him, heart beating in his ears, and felt blood dribble down his cheek. Ed was tracing innocent patterns on the gray stone; Jean's eye vessels had ruptured, turning that picture of wonder to blood. But he didn't feel anything at all.

This was rather euphoric, actually - the absence of pain, the absence of sensation, left him feeling as if he were floating on white clouds.

"Give me the last dose," he mumbled, closing his eyes. He swallowed. "Two each, isn't that fair?"

The killer sighed. "Yes. Yes, that's fair." He took a drag on his cigarette, and then tossed the blonde man the final needle. "It's going to hurt more, you know; don't have to pretend to be so bloody optimistic. You're tender."

Jean just grunted in response, not quite ready for such false affection. He coaxed the needle into a broad vein on the top of his hand. It would spread the drug more quickly and potently, ending his suffering sooner. That was the logic behind it, anyway. It had always worked with heroin.

He threw the needle back at the man, and then sat back on his haunches, fully expecting what was about to occur and all the more nervous because of it.

This time the tingles were not just uncomfortable, but painful, pricking sensitive nerves that had already experienced this drug once in one night. Like a bad acid trip about to happen, dread coiled in his stomach, anticipating horrors unimaginable. Because he knew this wasn't even the main event and he was already whimpering.

"You are a brave man," the killer said, talking more to his cigarette than to Havoc. "To die for him is one thing. Death is quick. Torment is not. Your body reaps the consequences and makes death seem a welcome thing."

Jean jolted with the first wave, body flailing wildly and banging into the pulpit rail. Strangely hitting his head was soothing, like breaking the ice and meeting cold oxygen. He dry heaved and let his teeth scissor through his already ripped lower lip. He asked Ed to kill him. To make it stop. Finally he just sat there, the serum shuddering through his veins like a twisted form of orgasm.

A wall of heat and flame burst like a roaring phoenix through the cathedral doors. On the threshold, spurred on by the sound of human screams, was Roy Mustang. The moment the flames waned into squealing air, his dark eyes scanned the place, the smoldering pews and the assortment of familiars on the pulpit steps.

His breath caught in his throat, tasting of sulfur and ash. "Charles?" he whispered, sinking to his knees on the opposite end of the church. Jean watched him in his misery, gritted teeth and dead limbs sinking into stone, the shriek of the crimson serum unrelenting.

The killer smiled. Clean teeth beneath the meat. "We've been expecting you. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Brother."

* * *

**One more chapter left, followed by (perhaps?) an epilogue. If you really want one. ;) **


	35. Letting Go

**AN: If you want, listen to "The Road" by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis during this. And "May It Be" by Enya afterwards. I'm a dork. Also, Torean is supposed to edit this for me some time, get it all shiny and awesome, but she won't be able to do it until Monday. If you want to wait until then to read it, you're more than welcome. **

**I just want you to know. I love you guys. A lot. I can't believe I'm finally ending this. This is it. The end. No more Blue. ...There'll be an epilogue, but, you know. Think about that.  
**

* * *

_"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever." -The Crow_

* * *

Roy Mustang stared at the face of his long-lost brother, the man who was supposed to have disappeared, died, in the fires of Ishbal. A bloody baby wrapped in bedsheets, declared dead, having never breathed. His mother's cold embrace, her eyes vacant, her mouth wide in the eternal scream of a fatal birthing. From that moment on, he and his father and the rest of the village had despised the lone survivor, then just an infant, contently asleep in his corpse-mother's arms.

_I suppose you might say I'm your guardian angel. _

Roy shook his head, frantically, cursing the echoing remnants of his sanity. He stared into coal-black eyes, just like his own. His mother's eyes. "You. You did this? You-" He gagged violently, the enormity of this transgression too much to bear. His unwanted younger sibling, back from the dead, come to take everything he ever loved away from him. This was all-

"Your fault!" he screamed, fingers digging into the back of his hand as he released a jet of flame towards the man standing over Edward's unconscious, limp form. But it sputtered and died. He could not touch Ed, not even inadvertently. And so he sunk to his knees. Weak creature, pathetic creature, a ghoul who stole lives much more precious.

Jean Havoc sank down against the stone, releasing himself to some temporary void. His body twitched and he was making quiet sounds in his throat, as if he had recently suffered a great ordeal. Roy did not pity him, did not care for him. Felt absolutely nothing as the man curled up against Ed's form and shook with him in some kind of trembling solidarity. The two souls had intertwined, and Roy _hated _them for it.

_I hear you've been having bad dreams, Mustang. God sent me to help out. _

"I don't blame you for not recognizing me sooner. It's wondrous, isn't it, the little things we throw to the very edges of our subconscious, never to think on again even when they're shoved to the forefront. Honestly, _Roy_, my dear elder brother, did you never wonder how I knew so much about you?"

Roy's throat constricted and his eyes closed. No. No he hadn't wondered, because it had never occurred to him to slip into his own memories. Or perhaps he had always known the truth, just buried it because that made his sins much more convenient to act upon. "I threw away my identity the moment I stepped onto the battlefield. I threw away who I was."

_Trust me, after everything you're about to go through, you're going to believe. _

Beautiful loneliness sank into the darkness of the small and dilapidated bar on Charleston Street. It was practically empty, but for an older man working late, and a military officer with little other business to attend to. What the occupants didn't know was that they were caught on a fishing line, being dragged along blood-drenched waters, and they could do absolutely nothing to stop it.

"Find that silver lining," the bartender said, offering a weak smile to the demon in his presence. The demon found his silver that very night, in the form of saline warmth, and he made a dark vow to protect his treasure. He was a dragon, a fire-keeper, who loved his most precious bounties: the red-ruby glow of blood as it fell from scream-curdling throats, the gold luster of fair hair, and the shimmer of angel tears.

"You remember saying goodbye to me at father's funeral," Charles said, looking over the once-proud Roy Mustang with something like pity in his beetle-black eyes. "You remember wishing me poorly in my humanitarian efforts. You remember being ten-years-old, weak and frightened, damning the last blood relative you had to call your own. You never really despised me until his death; you were a child, you were weak."

"You killed our mother," Roy spat, knowing in his heart that the boy this monster had once been was innocent. But still hating him, desperately hating him, all the same. "And that grief tortured him. That grief pushed him to putting a bullet through his skull, a noose around his neck!"

"You act as if I didn't suffer," Charles said, ever-patient, "when after feeling loved and wanted for the first time in my life, my family was ripped from me. At your hand. At you and your precious army's command, flea bitten mutts on chains." Disgust dripped like spittle from his lips.

All the gold and the guns and the god and the glory, that was the objective.

The demon had been dark as rotted blood in that battle. Snap. Flames obediently wrapped around writhing young bodies, and he just smirked, tugging along his prize, killing where the angel of death could not. Fullmetal struggled through the mass of bloated corpses, at first, forced his eyes closed and tried to pretend it was all just a terrible nightmare.

"You are going to have to learn precision," he had said to Edward Elric, smudging the tears into ash as he tried wiping them away. "If you must destroy, then do it quickly. That's compassion. Do you understand me? Look at me! _Do you understand me_?"

Ed had screamed as he took up his arm and bled every living soul dry. He forced men into sheaths of stone, crypts of sand, and watched, blood-soaked, as their bodies boiled around them, as their corpses became petrified blood and melted rocks. Steaming organs melted, sticky and stringy, the smell putrid like vomit or old cheese. Statues, relics, all for the worship of an angel who would not (could not) show them any mercy.

"We're quite a pair, aren't we, Fullmetal?" Roy had whispered into his hair, ignoring the far-away glaze in once untarnished gold. The gore of the wasteland, the sky burning scarlet, the smoke that carried the smells of roast. Pork and beans, piggy fat, dripping down the shattered windowpanes. Bubbles of flesh popped in infant mouths until they were crudely glued shut, screams swallowed like mother's milk.

I'll save your life if you save mine. You'll save my life if I save yours.

"Equivalent exchange."

Crusted black blood on white bandages. The machete had pierced Ed, severely enough to put him out of consciousness for two whole days (infection and white bacteria and yellow bacteria and pus). Ed loved sleep, loved the drugs they fed him, crushed the tablets in his teeth like they were candy.

"One day you'll be the one keeping me alive, Fullmetal."

There was red everywhere, from the gleam of sunset in the gymnasium windows, to the bruising glare of the stone as it floated on an invisible precipice, humming with the souls of the harvested, and to the choking grime of gore that buried military boots. Screams and shouting voices.

_No no no no no _

A few days later. They were in a white room with white walls and no windows. A sickly blue light on everything. Edward stared at the ceiling, lips parted in quiet breath, expression vacant. It was shock - the worst kind of shock, according to anyone who knew what they were talking about, though they did not extend that knowledge unto Mustang, who could only look on as his traumatized (_angel_) subordinate occupied purgatory, a half-death brought on by his role as the worst weapon in...

"It should have been me," he screamed at his superiors, "you _killed_ him."

"You were too old," they said smugly, dipping into their own treasures, power. Infamy. Gold in exchange for gold. Equivalence, the law of the alchemists, used against them. "Only a fresh alchemist could have done it."

Fresh.

"You mean a child."

Ed woke up, asked for Alphonse, and said nothing more for a very long time. Three months into veteran stage. A new apartment. Stocked pantry. Alphonse in the flesh. Roy kept to the shadows, craving - craving adrenaline, craving anything but stasis, and he realized, soon, that he was cursed to forever seek the other end of his symbiosis. He and Edward had made an unlikely pair, but it had kept them-

Alive? No. No, they had died there. In that war.

"A man named Hidel found me, half-dead in a trench." Charlie shoved his hands in his blood-stained pockets, and Roy could see the reel playing in the serene stained glass; a green lion flag, burning, a philosopher's stone locked away underground, chimeras with gnashing teeth. Lock and key. "He told me that he would help me if I helped him reunite Xing and Ishbal in the wake of Amestris' betrayal."

A protruding vein of equivalence. Roy had double-vision, two lines of sight. At one angle, Ed was parallel to the floor, labored breathing fluttering damp hair. At another, he stood upright, staring at him and into him, eyes molten rock. The former colonel blinked, droplets of sweat prickling his brow, the taste of soot and bacon in his mouth.

"I managed to find survivors of the genocide and took them to Central with me. We took shelter with a man and woman who threatened to expose us. I had no choice but to kill them, and while doing so-"

_Flesh on flesh  
Sacrilegious  
Black blood_

Two medium-sized tomatoes, the first victims - killed in a house along the road, the very same road traveled by the returning armies. No pattern. No circumstances.

_The intercourse  
Of knife in wound  
_

"-I had an epiphany."

The men, women and children stashed in the darkness of Thomas Randon's butcher shop, emaciated and weak. Huddled along in a caravan, on foot, hoping to find a better life when really they had been walking towards a temporary hell. Death would have been a mercy, one Roy Mustang would have been grateful to bestow in a white-hot flash.

"My plan was to execute a number of crimes and sell drugs in the vicinity of Central. Keep the people from feeling safe and provide a recreational distraction for the authorities. In the meantime, Fullmetal was a living weapon, and the military knew that. Hidel tried to protect him as best he could."

_"And you'll keep your mouth shut!" Hidel snapped. "I'm at the end of my rope, Elric, going to great lengths to keep you alive. You've got too much information in your head and they know that. Understand that I'm telling you this for your own protection."_

"Hidel was a pawn," Mustang murmured, the truth dawning on him, "in your game or in the Xingese emperor's?"

Charlie smirked, pleased with his brother's skills of perception. The army had honed those for its dark purposes. "Former scientists who had been swept under the rug with Xing's loss to Amestris. They hope to regain their glory by giving Fullmetal to their emperor, yes. Lao-Lin, a criminal with ties to the Xingese ruling class, was their leader. We dealt drugs - opiates."

_"-got ourselves a deal with some Ishballan guy who's supposed to be in Xing. Never met him. He sends us the machinery, the crates, we provide the labor-"_

_-sToP[s[3]1neWteXTmeSsaGe!  
_

_"Oh, well," the Xingese man said thoughtfully, sighing and rubbing the back of his head. He nodded to his men, who made a tight circle around them, rotted teeth and black skull caps. "I'm sure that if we got you to scream loud enough, your pretentious fuck of a prophet might save you." _

_Hot air._

_Chaos._

"We convinced soldiers they were nothing without the good rush of methamphetamine."

10:23 - snowflake

It was just a little needle  
just a little injection.  
Tiny amount, tiny amount-

10:26 - melt it...

"I committed the murders. I liked it. I liked feeling the life drain out of these selfish kids, these spoiled boils on the flesh of humanity. One of the dealers, Lars Johnson, informed me that a prostitute had ties to you; I killed her and hid her body near Randon's shop as a sign of success for my brethren. And it was wonderful."

_"Nope, zero. Thanks for trying. Lars, where the bloody fuck's those blankets? And get something warm for him, put him to sleep..."_

"I planted cameras and microphones. I learned a great deal about Edward. His fears. His weaknesses. His dreams. His love for his brother - though I knew it was a facade, for no demon, no reaper, knows what love is."

It was too close for comfort to know that the bastard had been watching Ed and everyone else for months before he ever made contact. The fucker had watched his kids, observed their schedules, their tics - seen Ed smile, laugh, love his brother, and then still had the guts to bleed Alphonse out in a warehouse. He didn't understand how someone could familiarize themselves with their prey like that.

"And I discovered something interesting, one dark night, when I was alone here attending to my surveillance," Charlie said, voice slick and smooth like oil. His gaze was level. "Colonel Roy Mustang had taken to his pretty little subordinate, and wasn't hesitating to leave his marks."

Flash; bruises; flash; scars; flash; tears.

"You shut up!" Roy yelled, pounding the ground with his fist. The taste of liquor caressed his tongue, old burn and archaic residues. But he could smell Ed, even beneath all that blood, even hidden in the clothing of another. He could smell him, sweet like lilies or spring rain.

"I knew that you were damaged," Charlie said pityingly. So, so damaged, a frayed basket, he just wanted the pretty thing in the red cloak to carry him about. "I knew that it would be easy to coerce you into drug addiction. The dominoes were there. I simply set them off. One by one."

_Your guardian angel will help you along the way. _

He remembered inserting the needle in his veins, remembered the rush of heat and adrenaline and the way every thought, no matter how lewd, had seemed like a revelation from god. He remembered screams as they bit his eardrums. He remembered the tight, flinching heat of Edward's body, the struggle that was all part of some demented foreplay.

_"I'm just real cold tonight, that's all. Body heat's transferable."_

Scream. Yes, scream.

Run from me, my bird. I will catch you. I will make you mine. Just be _mine. _

I have nothing else.

_Why shouldn't he love you back? _

Slam him up against a wall. Bruise him with your touch. Sweep those tears away. Darling, your expression, it's so cold, so empty, do you not want me here? Am I really so repulsive? I am offended, Edward Elric, that I could give you the gift of life and you will not let me take your sweet, sweet heat.

"Don't you see? He loved you so very much, trusted you, placed his life in your hands. And your hands just crept right back at him. You betrayed him, violated all that was left of his virtue, and through it I ensured you would be pinned like a butterfly to the military's cork board."

"What do you mean?" Roy snapped, a fuzzy kind of knowing creeping into his consciousness. "That, that somehow getting me to hurt Ed, that getting me to fuck him, was all just some way to make sure you could make it seem I killed all those kids, that I took him?"

"Bingo. While you took off your leash, you were digging a hole. I killed the kids, the blonds, as a way to force you into the investigative picture. With the help of Frank Archer, who had found me on a killer's instinct, I was able to provide evidence that a military man was involved."

_"My God, I think it was a military uniform-" _

_"They knew your schedule-"_

_"Could it be that he knew someone with blond hair, and only liked the __idea _of killing that person-" 

_"Shoe size-" _

_"All of the murder victims died from torture inflicted wounds. Roy Mustang helped oversee the interrogation and torture of prisoners of war!"_

"Archer was working for you all along, then," Mustang said, head wildly scanning the church for some sign of the sadistic bastard. Waiting in the shadows, vampire bat, buzzard, come to suck up what was left. His blood felt so cold, so cool, like ice-water instead of hot serum and scarlet. Prickles of paranoid awareness stoked his nervous system. "Where is he?"

"Unfortunately his capacity for usefulness ran out. You needn't worry about him anymore."

Fitting tomb.

"I had originally planned for you to bring Fullmetal to me yourself," the man said. "But that fell through when you brutally assaulted him to a point that required hospitalization. What's worse, the gun fight that you and this fucker" - he kicked Havoc hard in the ribs to emphasize his point, making him wheeze and spit blood - "got into complicated matters. I had to take him."

_parameters, a map, potassium chloride_

_"You listen to me, you stupid bastard!" Charlie snapped, his voice having risen to double volume. "The police are after you. Don't you understand that? You reckless, selfish, ungrateful fool! Do you have any idea what you've done? You've ruined everything!"_

Roy growled, low and furious. If that was the game, and Ed was the battle to be won, then why had Charlie toppled so many unnecessary pieces? The pawn and the queen and the knight. "If all you wanted was Fullmetal then why did you take my lieutenant down with you?"

"An unfortunate casualty," Charlie said in a bored mockery of sympathy. "But it hurt you, didn't it? It hurt Ed to have her die and bathe him in her blood. It was only natural that she should suffer for a greater good."

"A greater good? What greater good?" He pushed himself up, struggling as white pain shot through his old bullet wound. He indicated the cathedral sanctuary by spreading his arms wide, listening as the sound of rustling wings cracked the silence. "Is there a reason you broke your deal? That's why Lao-Lin went after Fadiyah, isn't it? You didn't deliver Ed?"

"No," Charlie said, "I never intended to follow through with it in the first place. I don't want another war, another genocide. If Xing ever had access to the Fullmetal Alchemist, the modern world as we know it would envelop into hellfire."

"I doubt your intentions are really so noble," Roy snapped, sneering at the blood and broken bodies by the altar. "You just wanted to torture a sixteen-year-old kid, that was what you wanted. You're a sadistic bastard. You didn't care that the Xingese mob would go after people who trusted you, thought you were their prophet. Do you have any idea what those bastards almost did to Fadiyah and her kid?"

Charlie's face darkened, blood rising to his cheeks. "I knew perfectly well."

"Was she just a casualty?"

"No."

"You get off on murder?"

"There's a reason I sent you to that house, you ingrate," Charlie's words were harsh whispers. "My people were breadcrumbs for you to follow, yes, and they have suffered unspeakably, more than me, more than you. But I know you better than you do. And I knew that you would play the hero, just once, as if that could erase every sin you have committed."

"I didn't _think _that."

"Didn't you, now? Saving an Ishballan woman and her incapacitated child, bandaging a dog, sparing the life of a young girl. Are these not mercies? Are these not tepid attempts to rescue yourself from damnation?"

"I didn't do it to save myself," Roy spat. "I did it because it was the right thing to do."

"What would you call war, then?" Silence.

Roy began a slow, slow march towards the altar, his very mind devoid of thought, deserted and functionless. It had once been a mantra of Ed, Ed, Ed, and now all of that was dust, and his steps were taken with newborn purpose. If Charlie wanted revenge, he had gotten it. The evidence was bloody and unconscious on the altar steps. Now Roy Mustang wanted his.

"You understand now, don't you? All this time you've been following the links of a chain straight to me. Like a prisoner in the darkness." Charlie had won his own game and all of the battered pieces were gathered for a carnival of bloodshed. Delirium's poison, the blue serum, would prosper in the halls of sanctimonious grace.

"I understand," Roy said, a shadow of a smile on white lips. He traced the fading transmutation circles on the back of his hands, letting the power circulate through his body. He would not yet unleash it, not now, not yet.

Ed stirred in his nightmares, a slight whimper escaping.

"And you do not want to know why?"

"I don't care," he said. And he would have snapped, would have done away with all of them (neither here nor there). What was a little more death to staunch the bleeding? Air hissed between his lips, dangerous, and he opened his mouth to roar with his flames, could feel the power trembling through his blood like sparks in an electrical cord.

One of the bodies on the steps moved, leg slamming into the back of Charlie's knee, sending him toppling to the ground. Fumbling hands. Quick breath. Charlie cursed and backhanded Ed as the teen shakily ripped the knife from around the man's neck. Jean Havoc, blood-streaked, shaking, grabbed Ed around the waist and took off, the glint of metal protruding from his hands.

Charlie scrabbled to a kneeling position, aimed his gun, and fired.

"_No_!"

Roy sent the energy for the bullet, melting it mid-air, the accuracy not offsetting the blister of heat that rushed like a second shot through the cathedral sanctuary. White-hot goop landed on the floor and cooled into misshapen metal. Jean supported Edward as they half-ran, half-stumbled to the left of the sanctuary, ducking and diving behind fragile wooden pews. They dripped blood in scarlet pools.

Charlie's head whipped toward Roy, dark eyes mirroring the dying sparks of ember. He fired off another shot, the bullet ricocheting in an explosion of wood chips as it embedded itself in a bench. Roy followed Jean and Ed's example, rushing for the cover of polished wood, heart slamming against his ribcage. He could smell hot air and burning wood, the singe of human hair.

He heard Charlie reloading the gun. The sound of shells hitting the floor.

He was across the aisle from Ed and Jean, parallel to them. Ed was shaking, his body half-limp, blood trailing down his arms and dripping from his fingertips. Jean whispered sweet nothings into his golden hair. Roy wanted to be beside him, hold him, subside his catatonic fears, but that would have to wait until all threats were neutralized. He looked over the edge of the pew bench, sweat and soot clogging his skin.

Another shot. He ducked, flinching, as the bullet clipped the edge of the bench and sent sharp splints of wood raining down on his head. He waited. One. Two. Forced himself to look over again, fingers pressed to the transmutation circle, and sent a hot streak of flame towards the man crouched on the altar steps.

Charlie's hand caught the brunt of the fire burst, charring instantly. His screams caught in his throat, but he kept his hand on the gun, sweat and gritted teeth the only signs of pain. The small pulse of flame put itself out once the veins and sinew had become too black to burn. "Too weak to kill me, brother?"

Hurried footsteps.

In the distraction, in the stench of burning meat, Jean had dragged Ed off again, towards the sanctuary entrance and what was left of smoldering, black wooden doors. Roy panicked, letting the alchemy in his blood burn fiery and white, feeling the heat of stone and wood as they burst aflame, blocking the blond man's path. Jean turned around, shielding Ed with his body, his blue eyes unflinching and angry and as hard as aquamarine gemstones.

"Let us through!"

Charlie fired at him. The bullet pierced Jean's shoulder, causing him to double over and cry out. Scraps of singed fabric, strings glowing bright orange, burned up in the heat of the bullet path.

"_Havoc!_" Ed screamed, going down with him, staunching the bloody wound with nothing but his already soaked hands. His face writhed in panic as he tried to think through Jean's grunts of pain. "Shit, shit!" Ed took hold of Jean's arms and dragged him behind another wooden pew, smoke slowly filling the church.

Charlie walked towards them, methodically, shoulders back and the gun at a relaxed position at his side. He was just past where Roy hid in the shadows, when he raised the gun with the barrel pointing straight at Ed's head from across the sanctuary.

Roy dove out from behind his own set of pews, biting his tongue and wrapping a rope of flame around his brother's body. The jacket fabric didn't catch, didn't blacken, just smoked before retarding the flame. Roy cursed, crawling forward, realizing too late that Charlie had planned for his flames and had used resistant material.

Thick black smoke gathered at the temple-top, clouding the serene pictures in the stained glass windows. Red firelight pervaded soft moonlight.

He was overexerting himself. Even after just a few transmutations, he struggled to take in air and he could feel his pulse beneath his skin. The flurry of weakness in his blood made it nearly impossible to move, and now that the oxygen was slowly being burned away, it was only a matter of time before they all succumbed to suffocation.

He looked for something to write with, something to draw with.

"Child, you are reaching the end of your life," Charlie was saying to Ed, slowly getting closer to the blond and the flicker of flames that kept him at the man's mercy. Roy had, unwittingly, only aided Charlie in trapping him like a rabbit in wolf teeth. "You can feel death upon you. I can see it in your eyes. Everything you've ever loved will cease to exist the moment your heart stops. For you, at least."

Ed said nothing, shaking his head frantically, and pressed his ruined hand harder against Jean's shoulder wound. Blood squelched purple and scarlet through his fingers. The older man's chest heaved in pained breath, but he was conscious, leaning against the stone wall as if it were more than just mortar and rock.

Shadows danced in the fire. Ed's shadow waved back and forth in the sanctuary aisle, flickering from menacing to docile. It was metamorphosis.

"You are going to die," Charlie said, stopping short just as he reached the boy. He looked down on him. "You are going to meet the souls you have stolen. And they will dole out judgement on your eternal being. Your transgressions in this life will mean torment in the next."

Ed opened his mouth as if to say something, but all that escaped was a shaky sob. He looked back at Havoc, tenderly, tears falling to stain the man's shirt like the patter of rainfall. Roy snatched up a sharp splinter of wood, testing the edge. He cut into the back of his hand, hard, clenching his muscles as the wood crudely dug a pattern into the flesh and veins.

"You accept your fate." Charlie's voice was incredulous. "How very noble."

"If you're going to kill me, just fucking do it!" Ed shrieked, complexion darkening from either flame or frustration. "Stop _fucking _with my head!"

Roy winced as the last line was etched. He dropped the bloody splinter, hands now showcasing two different circles. When he touched it, it glowed, and the air stirred as the transmutation did its work. He forced the oxygen out of the fire's vicinity, into Ed's immediate area and throughout the sanctuary. The boy looked at him, briefly, when he detected the change in air quality, but didn't give anything away.

"Just let him go," Ed said, indicating Jean in his half-conscious state. Such beautiful emotion. "All you want is me and Mustang, just kill me and go. We're the ones you want."

"Don't be stupid, Edward!" Havoc grabbed him by the front of his shirt, wincing in severe pain. His words had been rasped, choked off by smoke and injury.

"I meant something to you once," Ed spoke up, locking gazes with Roy, "when I didn't mean _shit _to anyone else."

"You still mean everything to me," Roy responded. "I'd kill for you."

Charlie smiled. "You already have."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You don't remember?" Charlie's dark eyes gleamed. He nodded at Ed, his smile growing into a crescent moon. "Maes Hughes was never my victim, darling, no matter how much you wish it so. You see, there once was a man who wanted what he shouldn't have, and when his friend discovered his transgressions..."

A car ride. Silent, on the featureless highway. Maes had looked over at him, hands firm on the steering wheel, and spoke words he wished he hadn't heard. Asked him if he had been involved with Ed, if he had touched Ed, and that if he had, he was as good as dead. As good as dead?

"Well, you can guess what happened then."

He had shoved Maes' head forward, hard, onto the steering wheel, watched as blood splattered the windshield. Unconscious. He took the wheel. Pulled over. Left the car, stumbled over his feet, raked the back of his head with his fingers. Shit, shit, shit. Oh, God. Shit.

Snap. And as soon as he snapped he sank to his knees, voices and screams filling his head - some real, some imagined - and he sobbed and screamed in the darkness, watching as the car exploded in a mushroom cloud of debris, Maes' body a black writhing form that soon stopped writhing. The sound of the flames was too much and he could not tell if Maes had screamed.

"Yes, he found out, didn't he? Discovered you'd been molesting your subordinate since war broke out. Since you came home. So you killed him!"

"It was an accident!"

"You set him on fire! You set him on fire and abandoned him on the road!"

Ed put a hand over his mouth, sobbing as he stared at the blood on the sanctuary floor. Roy hated to see him crying like that, to see him so torn up and anguished. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could say that would alleviate his suffering. And how could he? How could he possibly understand how necessary it had been?

"It's time you made a choice," Charlie said. "This gun was not meant for me." He tossed him the weapon, and Roy caught it, thunderstruck, terrified at whatever new game the bastard was playing; desperate enough to listen, if only to stop Ed's shrieks of mental agony from reaching his heart.

"I'm...I'm so sorry, I..." He couldn't apologize for this, couldn't apologize for murder. He didn't regret it, even now, even as his heart screamed, even as his mind stewed in revulsion. Instead of speaking, he just hung his head, the gun in his hand, fire reflections in the metal barrel. Jean comforted Ed, as best he could, but he knew the boy was dead inside.

"Everything you've done could have worked out so perfectly, you know," the man continued, glaring at Havoc and the way he tenderly held onto Ed. Roy tasted the first traces of bile, the novel bubbling of nausea. "If it weren't for him. He has poisoned the boy's mind, corrupted him, left him rejecting you. All you wanted was to show him love."

"Mustang, don't listen to him!" Jean shouted, even as he stroked Ed's back, even as he used his body like a human shield. He didn't even want Ed to look at him. "He's just using you!"

"If it weren't for Jean Havoc, you would have been free to do whatever you liked. You wouldn't have been shot. You wouldn't have been kept from the healing you needed."

That made...sense.

That...made...

"You could have been happy. You could have been. Free."

* * *

It happened in an instant. Jean saw the flash of the gun, but didn't realize what Mustang was doing before it was too late. Something hard slammed him to the ground as his ears rang with the sound of a bullet punctuating oxygen. Firm warmth fell on top of him and then everything was still.

Silent.

He smelled sweet hair, tainted with the sour scent of fresh blood.

Jean sat up, Ed's limp form rolling off onto the ground. He knew. He knew without even looking. Carefully, as if handling delicate glass, he took the teen's blood-damp head in his hands, turning it to look in cold, open golden eyes. Blood and drippings of thick material dribbled out onto the floor from the back of Ed's head, his hair catching most of it like a golden net.

Jean didn't know what to feel, and apparently neither did anyone else. Roy was silent, unmoving, gun trembling in the same position as when he had fired it. Charlie's head was bowed in a kind of dark reverence. Jean shook his head, hot salt dribbling into his mouth (he didn't even know he'd started crying), and then thought, thought of all the things he could be doing to revive him -

"No, no, no!" he said, scrabbling to staunch the bleeding, though it had already waned in a congealing glob of brain matter and skull fragments. Dark pupils. No breathing. Flesh growing colder instantaneously. Jean knew, yes, he knew, but he still checked for a pulse as if divine intervention might suddenly occur. He felt for a pulse, but there was nothing, no flutter, no ridge of throbbing vein. "Fuck, Ed, no!"

He looked to the side as Roy fell to his knees with a thud. The dark-haired man stared at Ed's body, limp and bloody and comparable to a rag-doll, and screamed. Screamed like the walls had voices, screamed like the souls of the dead had finally broken open the gates. The innocent dead that had followed Edward like a great weight had fled his body to join the others in decay.

Charlie was laughing. "Interesting how things play out when you have a couple of unpredictable mental cases on your hands-"

"You shut up, you _bastard_!" Jean shouted over Roy's screams. He sobbed into Ed's neck, clutching him close so that the heat might not abandon his body too soon. "Oh, God."

It had all been for nothing. The struggle, the pain, the horror - it had all led up to one moment, one bullet. One bullet had ended the whirlwind, the epitome of tragedy, that was Edward Elric. He did not want to call it ironic because such a thing was meant for characters that were rotten to the core. Ed had the most beautiful goddamn soul Jean had ever seen, and no, he hadn't seen a lot of good souls, but -

"You killed him," he struggled to say, staring at Mustang with eyes red from crying. "You _killed _him. I'll fucking kill you!"

Roy was quiet. His eyes were focused on a single point on the floor, and for an instant, Jean saw the man he used to be. He looked disoriented and horrified and catatonic, as if seeing all the sins he had committed in just a few seconds of flashes. Genocide. Murder. Rape.

"I deserve to die," Roy said evenly, voice emotionless and controlled. He played with the gun. Made no move to use it. Ed's blood spread like a never-ending pool, until Roy could see it in his periphery; knew that it had been spilled by his own hands. Remembered sunshine and a small house in Resembool and a ten-year old broken by a transmutation, a taboo he hadn't had the guts to commit himself.

Before things had gotten so...so...

"He deserves it more."

Unspoken thoughts crisscrossed between him and Jean. Two hearts, two bullets, one destiny, one kill. The forest, the water, the needle, the grave. Havoc went for Charlie first, hands like the vicious talons of a feral bird, sinking into his neck. Unholy symbiosis, that's what this was; angels or demons, that's what they were becoming. The earth groaned as the unspeakable came full circle.

Charlie did not scream.

They threw him on the ground, snow beating the stained glass, Ed's lifeless eyes staring at a cross mounted on the wall. Jean took up the gun. Dug the barrel into the underside of Charlie's knee. He pulled the trigger. Blood and a spatter of shattered kneecap. Roy jammed his thumbs in every soft space, in every dark corner, tasting blood on his lips - and Jean was mad, perhaps even more mad than he was, tears and salt and bitten lip.

"Motherfucker, say something!" Jean shouted, expelling everything, memories (good and bad alike). Charlie was rigidly silent, eye sockets bleeding out. He was smiling. Smiling and saying nothing. "Feel something!"

Roy knew he wanted to make him feel everything Ed had. Every torment, every bit of darkness. This was not Ed's story, not how it was meant to end, anyway. He knew that now. He knew that Ed had just been a pawn in the game, a roll of the dice, a piece of the puzzle. He wasn't a consequence, he was was the motivation. No. This wasn't Ed's story.

It wasn't anyone's.

"I understand," he said as Jean continued, rightfully, to beat Charlie into submission. He grappled with the lifeless man, gritted his bloody teeth in desperation for a fight, but Charlie didn't give him one. Just one small mercy, a victim who would fight; what was vengeance if the perpetrator wanted death? "I understand why you came after me. Why you wanted me dead. I destroyed both worlds, both worlds that were granted me by whatever god there is. I did what I wanted with them, while you were born with less than half a soul, less than half a world to call your own.

"But _why_? Why did you have to take Fullmetal?" His voice hitched in his throat. Flashes. Two graves. I could have taken you with me. I couldn't. But I did anyway. Bells in the clock tower, the cold snow in his boots, Alphonse's ghost watching from beneath shadowy trees. Pure eyes narrowing. Decisively. "Why did you have to take him down when you could have just killed me and been done with it?"

Charlie did not respond. A smile broke through cracked teeth and split cheek. The raven and the dove danced around a burning crest, a circlet of energy, a cross, the serpent swallowing its own tail (tale). Roy grabbed his right arm; Jean took the other. They hoisted him up, towards the altar, slammed him down on marble stone, the echo of body on rock vibrating holy walls and lavish windows.

Another shot. Another shatter, another fracture. Jean's eyes pleading madness, flickering wildly between the martyr (angel, criminal, terrorist, murderer) on the table and the martyr (angel, criminal, terrorist, murderer) on the ground. Why do the eyes fade before the body goes cold? The soul accepts its fate, first, and then the body along with it, as Ed's eyes had lost their pretty brass varnish long before his heart stopped beating.

"Step back!" Roy ordered the blond man, shoving him towards Edward's cooling corpse. "Move."

Jean obeyed, stumbling and shaking, frosted breath escaping pale lips. He got on the ground, watching as Mustang seethed, watching as Mustang (his colonel, his leader, his commander - "I will follow you to the top and beyond, sir") readied his hands for that final phoenix-flame of violent retribution. Charlie would join the weight of ten thousand dead men.

Charlie turned his bloody head. Ear hanging by a bit of sinew. Broken nose, white bone, swollen eyes half-shut with expanded tissue. His breath rattled in his chest, his meaty lips exposing his teeth, a flicker of bright scarlet tongue that danced among the taste of copper.

Roy let out a broken sob. "Why?"

Charlie laughed. Low, humorless, human. It was mirthless, it was honest, it was wrought with grief and unpolished wisdom. Like a dark stone buried in river mud, its existence altogether insignificant. "The best way to injure a heart is to hurt the ones who share its beat."

Jean shielded his head with his arms.

Roy let go - of everything, all the anger, all the sorrow, all of the love and hatred he had held for Edward Elric and so many others - in the form of flame, a horizontal pillar, a plume of fragrant coal. The sound permeated all thoughts, bursting ear dreams, concentrated and deadly, the force of compressed air hitting the body on the altar and sending it crashing (burning) into the wall behind it, where it flailed black and blue before solidifying into unidentifiable waste.

Shards of colored glass rained down, brilliant blue and red in moonlight, in cold darkness, windows shattering from sheer force. Roy heard whispers in the cacophony, listless and faded, like the exhales of dying children. Wind of an ethereal sort blew his clothes back, his soot-and-grime streaked hair from his forehead, swept the ash and the glass aside and into the bleed of snow through empty window frames.

Flames caught the crimson curtains on the wall, and the fire spread, brightening the dull to life. Roy was very still, drinking it all in, the noise and the smell of burnt flesh and the memory of absent screams. There had been no screaming. Instead, he felt as if a great weight had lifted from his shoulders, as if all of the spirits of those he had destroyed had been released from his soul, had gone on to surround him with their haunting gazes. Judging him. Prodding him towards-

"Get him out of here," Roy whispered, almost to himself, remembering Havoc at his back. He turned to look. Jean was at Ed's side, holding onto him, shielding his body from the glass and the flame and the breath of god as if there were something left to protect. "Take him and go."

"What are you going to do?" Jean asked, the silver of tears reflecting fire.

Roy smiled. He tasted salt dribbling into his mouth, but just licked it away with his dry tongue. "Get him out of here, lieutenant. That's an order."

Something crashed. A wooden beam. A pile of timber and cement and plaster. Material. The building was old, it was weak, and Roy knew that it would take very little for it to come down. And oh - it would come down. It would have to come down.

"I said, that's an order!"

Jean moved - praise angels, he moved. He took Ed up in his arms, the teen's limp form stiffening into something barely mobile, but his eyes never left Roy's. Not until they were forced to. Not until the blond man turned, turned away from it all (the suffering, delirium, genocide, masochistic schizophrenia), not until he gave in, walking over rubble and ash and fire, not until he had gone down the aisle and nodded at the ghosts and the remnants of horror, not until he burst through the doors and into ice cold air.

Not until then, and only then, when Roy knew they were gone, did he close his eyes - and let go.

* * *

Jean stumbled down the stone steps of the cathedral, limping, bleeding, his ears ringing with the sound of bells and fire and chaos and sirens. Above all, he heard the sound of individual snowflakes, soft and light, as they fell on stone and ground. Edward's body was cold in his arms. Cold, yes, but beautiful. Ed had always been...

He collapsed in a snow drift, somewhere, cold wind sending his hair aflutter, and Ed tumbled down with him, falling into the blanket of ice and pelting it with dark spatters of blood. Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Lights, serum, life. Jean stroked the boy's head, quietly, slowly, feeling the silk of his hair beneath his fingertips, stroking away the grime. Noise blurred into fuzzy black and white. All the color left the world.

He lay on his back, blinking snowflakes from his eyelashes. He watched it fall, from the blank slate sky, gloomy, colorless, serene. The sweep of weather appeared like stars in some otherworldly dimension, flowing and formless, a dance of celestial softness. Just dance. He squeezed Ed's hand.

"Wish we could see the stars," Jean said, letting his eyes close, feeling the sprites of ice on his skin. He was alive. He felt so alive, even among so many ghosts, so many souls. When he was quiet, he felt he could even hear Ed breathing. Illusion, or. "I know how much you loved those."

Ed did not respond.

Jean smiled for the both of them. "Yes. This will have to do."

An explosion rocked the earth. He jumped, he trembled, holding Ed tight to him, ready for Gabriel, ready for the trumpets. Bright light at his back. Smoke and fire billowed from the cathedral, black clouds rising above the picturesque winter landscape. Jean knew that Roy had probably - probably blown himself up, or blown the church up, or -

He reclined again. No matter.

"Colonel!" a cool female voice called. And he smelled her hair, familiar and warm, and felt her throw a blanket over him, felt her shadowy warmth. Riza? He started talking, sputtering, random nothings. He was incoherent. She couldn't understand him. Penny Dale couldn't understand him.

"Take h-him," he managed between breathless sobs, crouching low in the brown woolly blanket. Snow whipped his shoulders as flames warmed his back. "Please."

He heard her gasp, the flashing red and blue of emergency vehicles contorting her expression with foreboding shadows. She covered her mouth with her hand as looked on Ed's body, her eyes wet and full of terrible pity.

She covered him anyway. To keep him warm.

Four men, dressed in police gear, rushed past him and into the burning building. What was there to find? Jean said nothing. He wanted nothing. He just wanted to be alone with Ed and that was all. He just wanted to be alone.

"Can you speak?" Penny asked gently.

He shook his head no.

"Do you want to lie down?"

He shook his head no.

She hesitated. "Do you want to be alone?"

And he nodded, sobbing, lying down in the drift with his stinging cheeks pressed against the snow. He stared into cold eyes the color of sunflowers and willed them to blink, urged those pale lips to breathe life into veins which fluttered so beautifully only an hour or so before. Only an hour.

"You are beautiful," he whispered to no one in particular. "You are beautiful." He didn't shut the kid's eyes for him; he would much rather have just stared at them, forever, the Quasimodo to his Esmeralda. How stupid. How utterly, inappropriately romantic.

"Jesus Christ."

He twitched. There was awe, in that voice. That -

Over at the church, the cathedral, and everyone - when had they? - hundreds of them, pointed their eyes towards the smoke, the pillars of flame, and watched as thousands of moths danced up towards a hidden moon. Black. Fluttering. Shapes. They danced, they flowed, dark and gray, formless, purposeless, a waltz with the snow.

Free.

* * *

**Epilogue will be posted shortly to tie up loose ends, lend some happiness to the picture. **


End file.
